APPLES 
Professor F. H. Ballou, Wooster, Ohio: 
“Should be located on elevated lands ad- 
jacent to large bodies of water if pos- 
sible.” 
Professor H. C. Thompson, Agricultural 
College, Mississippi: “A northern slope 
in Mississippi is best.” 
Professor J. R. Shinn, Moscow, Idaho: 
“Apples have been grown at elevations of 
6,000 feet, but the profitable commercial 
orchards are below 3,000 feet. A. loca- 
tion near to markets is very desirable.” 
Professor R. W. Fisher, Bozeman, Mont., 
thinks that the best soils are rolling lands 
on hillsides because soil drainage and air 
drainage are better on these rolling situa- 
tions, and there is less danger of frosts. 
Market Conditions 
Professor F. H. Ballou, Wooster, Ohio: 
“The orchard should be near a good ship- 
ping point, a large town is better than a 
small one.” 
Professor H. C. Thompson, Agricultural 
College, Mississippi: ‘‘Locate the orchard 
near a good road and near a railroad, 
for the danger of bruising fruit and the 
cost of hauling are considerable.” 
PREPARATION OF LANDS FOR OR- 
CHARDS 
Timbered or Rocky Land 
In the case of land that has been cov- 
ered with timber or of rocky land, it is 
better before planting the trees to remove 
all the stumps and large rocks, because if 
the trees are to be properly lined in 
straight rows, stumps or rocks may inter- 
fere with the setting. I saw an orchard 
of several hundred acres in the Ozark 
mountains that was set on land where the 
underbrush had been grubbed and the 
large timber cut down and allowed to lie 
on the ground to rot while the apple 
trees were growing. This was not a sat- 
isfactory arrangement, because there 
could not be a proper alignment of trees, 
and the land could not be cultivated and ° 
kept free from weeds and wood growth 
that sprang up from the roots of trees. 
At the same time there was more or less 
danger from injury by forest fires that 
might catch in the dry brush. The theory 
of the owner was that the decaying tim- 
ber would fertilize the land, and that 
if he waited to clear the land entirely 
107 
the orchard would be delayed one year, 
but he discovered later that he would 
have gained time by waiting another year, 
and supplying the land with fertilizers, 
in the form of cover crops. 
No General Rule. 
Many things have to be left to the 
common sense of the man who grows an 
orchard. It is not possible to lay down 
a set of rules that are elaborate enough 
for guidance in all places. Generally, 
however, the land should be properly lev- 
eled. This is especially important in irri- 
gated sections where water must be con- 
veyed to every part of the orchard. It 
may cost $10, $15 or even $25 per acre 
to level land for proper irrigation, but if 
it must be done, it pays to do it before 
planting, because if the trees are set out 
before leveling, and the elevations low- 
ered and the depressions filled after the 
setting of the trees, the soil will be car- 
ried away from the trees set on the high 
points and given too great a depth on the 
lower portions; thus in one part of the 
orchard the roots of the trees will be 
too near the surface, and in another part 
too far below the surface. | 
Fig. 1. A Sage Brush Grubber. Baker 
Manufacturing Co. 
Hard Pan Near Surface 
Where there is hard pan or a thin strat- 
um of rock near the surface, it can often 
be broken up with dynamite, and the 
lower stratum of soil reached, so that the 
roots of the trees will not be obstructed 
but will take hold of the lower stratum. 
