AN ENGLISH FRUIT-FAEM IN THE MAKING. 



489 



be found worth, the doing. As to the chemical properties of soil, it 

 is axiomatic that plant-foods become exhausted by the continuous 

 cropping of land, and " manuring " must be resorted to sooner or 

 later by the fruit- farmer as surely as by any other cultivator. 



Site and soil conditions having passed the test of careful investiga- 

 tion and the property become destined for fruit-farming purposes, we 

 may now briefly consider what further has to be done to enable it to 

 fulfil that destiny. Here it may be said that land which is to be devoted 

 to fruit-culture should be taken in hand by the fruit-farmer as many 

 months — a year is not too long — before the time of actual planting as 

 possible. All hurry should be avoided, so that the preparation may be 

 really thorough. Thoroughness in the preparation of the orchard site 

 means future prosperity to the orchard, and the preparatory processes 

 take time. The land to be prepared may be arable or grass land ; if the 

 former, the processes of preparation are less exacting in expenditure 

 of time and money, but if the site is in grass, then the first process is 

 to get rid of that grass. The modem commercial orchard is never 

 planted in grass. 



In dealing with grass land, the first step is to put in a plough that 

 will cut the sod cleanly at a depth of four to five inches, and turn it 

 completely over, burying the green and exposing the roots, the land 

 afterwards lying as flat and ridgeless as a skilful ploughman can leave 

 it; and it is astonishing how very skilfully the process is sometimes 

 performed. Weather conditions will determine how long it will be 

 before that grass is destroyed and the land arable, but if that first 

 shallow ploughing has been well executed, a few weeks of dry summer 

 weather, or a few frosts in winter, will serve to kill the grasses com- 

 pletely; and in that dead sod the frui-fc-farmer has a very valuable 

 asset — humus. 



Land which has been subjected to the ordinary purposes of general 

 farming, although it may have been quite well " done " in the light 

 of that purpose, it may be taken for granted has never been sufficiently 

 well " done " for the purpose of fruit-growing; and the question of 

 "preparation " we are now dealing with embraces as a preliminary 

 measure a thorough deep cultivation. Everybody knows that " trench- 

 ing " is the first process in the making of a garden; so is it, or its 

 equivalent, in the making of a fruit- farm. Trenching by spade over any 

 extended area — even the area of a very small fruit-farm — is too costly 

 a process to be thought of. The fruit-grower must employ steam or 

 horse-power, and either, when properly applied, affords a very efficient 

 substitute for the spade. If available, steam-power is to be preferred, 

 as being both more expeditious and cheaper than horse-power. When 

 the area to be treated is one of fifty acres or more it is generally 

 possible to obtain the services of a steam-ploughing and subsoiling plant. 



What is to be aimed at is a thorough working of the soil to the 

 greatest depth the implements can achieve, the object being to turn 

 the surface-soil, as in ordinary digging and ploughing, to the depth of 

 a foot, and to break and stir the subsoil thoroughly without bringing 



