8 HARRISONS’ NURSERIES 
own orchards. This plan works best on steep hills. The rows should 
follow the lines of the hill to make driving easier. No rules can be 
laid down for hillside arrangement. Use some modification of the 
plans given here. (See diagrams.) 
Cultivation of Orchards. Cultivation keeps the trees supplied 
with available plant-food and saves moisture. Young orchards of 
any kind always should be cultivated clean, from early spring until 
in July. Plow or tear up the soil as soon as ground is dry enough to 
work, harrow after every rain, and every week or ten days until it is 
time to sow the cover-crop or mulch for winter. Keep them hustling. 
Cover-Crops. A cover-crop should be sown in the latter part of 
the summer, when trees have made their growth for the year, and 
when both fruit and trees have begun to ripen. Cover-crops hold the 
soil together and keep it from leaching out and gullying, and also 
newly sown plants take up water in great amounts and take it away 
from the trees. This is the thing desired at this time, for tree-growth 
needs a check then. Young plants require a great deal of nitrogen, 
but less potash and phosphorus. As the cover-crop grows, it feeds 
largely on the nitrogen, leaving much potash and phosphorus for the 
trees just when they need them most. Cowpeas, vetch, rye, and the 
clovers make excellent cover- crops. 
Fertilizing. Stable manure is one of the best fertilizers for feed- 
ing a young growing orchard. Scatter the manure on top of the 
ground around the trees, at least as far from the trunks as the branches 
extend so that the fine fibrous roots can take up the fertilizing elements. 
Make your soil fine and loose before you add fertilizer, and you will 
not need to add so much. No two pieces of land are alike in plant- 
food needs. Learn to know what elements are lacking, and supply 
them in right proportions. 
Potash, nitrogen, and phosphoric acid are the plant-foods that have 
to be supplied. Nitrogen is best obtained through leguminous cover- 
crops. Potash and phosphorus have to be supplied in chemical form. 
Nitrogen is the growing material, making wood and size in fruit; 
potash goes into fruit, making flavor and color; phosphoric acid goes 
into wood and seeds, (use only a fifth as much of it as of potash). 
Get plant-foods on the ground evenly, over a space at least twice 
as wide as the branches cover, and apply them at the right season. 
Double crops pay, but you must supply plant-food and moisture 
for everything that grows on the land. Do not rob the trees. 

This tractor did all discing on 144 acres of five-year-old orchard. No piowing 
was done 
SEND YOUR ORDER EARLY. TREES WILL BE SHIPPED AT 
PROPER TIME FOR PLANTING 


