Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 205 



headed trees. It is of great importance on 

 many of our steep, shaly hillsides to shade the 

 ground as soon as possible with the growing 

 trees, as we can often retain the moisture much 

 easier in this than any other way. 



In many instances on very steep, thin land, 

 as we said under ^^Self Mulched Trees," it has 

 been found advisable to form a mulch around 

 the trees by allowing their own limbs to cover 

 the ground so closely that there would be no 

 vegetation under them, thus solving the prob- 

 lem of mulching en these steep, thin lands, 

 where hauling in a foreign mulch is not practi- 

 cal. Where land is so thin that all the plant 

 growth gotten is needed on the space between 

 the trees, this self-mulching has proven very 

 satisfactory. 



Havi^e chosen the low headed tree as our 

 ideal for steep lands, let us next consider some 

 of the necessary requisites of this tree in order 

 that it may be as complete an ideal as possible. 

 Let us think of the fruit tree as a scaffold. One 

 of the first requisites of a scaffold would be 

 strength, so we are to build it low and strong. 

 Then a two or three storied scaffold will hold 

 more than a single story. As a fruit grower 

 wants as large a yield as possible, we will build 

 our trees, or scaffold, two or three Sitories high, 

 thus largely increasing the capacity of the trees. 



