TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT- GROWERS 5 CONVENTION. 



33 



followed, but compared with orchards planted the old way (that is, in 

 holes barely large enough to take the ball conveniently, dug in the 

 unmoved soil, save a few inches of plowed surface, even with best after- 

 treatment), the results have been markedly different. 



To illustrate: From one of these orchards planted five years ago this 

 spring, the second and third seasons after planting we took enough fruit 

 to pay all the expenses of the first three years, including planting. Last 

 year, before the trees had been planted full four years, the receipts from 

 the five acres were sufficient to net a good income on a valuation of 

 $1,000 per acre. This year the crop will pay over 10 per cent on a 

 valuation of $2,000 per acre (a price for which the orchard could have 

 been readily sold with the crop), after all expenses are paid. I take this 

 instance because the orchard is the oldest of my own planted with special 

 reference to previous preparation of the ground. But later plantings 

 show similar results, and a large planting, now two years old, by a 

 neighbor who made even more thorough preparations for the root bed, 

 promises to quite outstrip my own experience. I do not claim that 

 these results are wholly due to deep preparation of the soil before plant- 

 ing, but insist that this is what made deep after-culture and other 

 modern treatment able to produce them. 



My theorjr, which. has grown out of these and other experiments, 

 sufficient, as I think, in time and extent to generalize from, is that the 

 most important advance to be made in California horticulture during 

 the next decade, after bringing into more general and thorough use 

 modern deep surface cultivation, is the preparation for orchard plant- 

 ing by making a root bed two or three times as deep as is now the 

 usual custom. And I am inclined to think that this applies to decidu- 

 ous fruits even more than to citrus. I expect yet to see orchards set in 

 ground that has been thoroughly stirred in some way to a depth of from 

 20 to 30 inches at least. 



Time will not permit discussing the philosophy of this deep handling 

 of soils; but the more extensive aeration, securing deeper rooting, util- 

 izing a larger portion of native fertility, and greater storage capacity 

 and conservation of moisture, I think will readily occur to you as most 

 important gains for the new system. 



As to handling the soil as more directly connected with irrigation and 

 cultivation, the features now generally adopted by our most successful 

 orchardists are so familiar that I will call your attention to but two or 

 three practices which seem to me most important. The first in impor- 

 tance connected with irrigation, in my estimation, is the placing of the 

 irrigating water at once as far from the surface and as near the root bed 

 as possible, by furrows as deep as can be made without disturbing lead- 

 ing roots. Though the marked benefit from this deep furrowing has 

 been demonstrated for several years, the practice has made but slow 

 3 — F-GC 



