Vol. LXII1. No. 2846. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 13, 1904. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
SHEEPING THE ORCHARDS. 
Some of Its Advantages. 
DRAINING OUT FERTILITY.—In apple growing, 
as in other crops, no one should expect to get something 
for nothing, neither expect to get two crops for the 
price of one, either in labor or soil exhaustion. A crop 
of apples takes from the soil a specific amount of nitro¬ 
gen, potash and phosphoric acid, just as surely as a crop 
of grass, grain or vegetables, and in time the available 
supply will be exhausted, unless in some way a supply 
be returned to the soil. It is true that needed nitrogen 
can be obtained by growing some of the nitrogen-gath¬ 
ering cover crops, but potash and phosphoric acid are 
just as necessary and can be in no way given to the 
soil except by a direct application of some manure 
rich in them, or the feeding upon the soil of some form 
of food to animals that shall contain these in the result¬ 
ing voidings. Some 
soils may be so abund¬ 
antly supplied by na¬ 
ture with these ele¬ 
ments as to stand long 
cropping, but sooner 
or later all must fail, 
and to this there can 
be no exception. 1 f 
the orchard be under 
constant cultivation, 
this, with the action 
of the elements, has a 
tendency to break up 
the combinations in 
which these elements 
are locked up and ren¬ 
der them available to 
the use of the trees, 
but this in no way adds 
anything to the store; 
in fact, it hastens the 
time when the supply 
available shall be in¬ 
adequate, both by ena¬ 
bling the trees to use 
it more rapidly, and 
by allowing much to 
be dissolved and 
washed away in the 
rainfall. Combining 
tillage with the 
growth of annual cover 
crops can in no way 
add anything but ni¬ 
trogen and humus or 
vegetable matter. I f 
the mulch plan be followed, and all the grass grown be 
piled about the trees to rot, nothing is added but humus 
and nitrogen, both taken from the soil, and as the 
grasses that will grow in shade are very few of them 
nitrogen-gatherers, very little will be added except 
humus. There may be favored spots here and there 
where nature made the soil so rich in potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid as to grow fine trees and for many years 
large crops of apples, but unfortunately those spots arc 
very few. The great bulk of the modern orchards were 
planted on “old land,” cropped for generations before 
the trees were set, and continued to be cropped until in 
bearing, with everything taken off and nothing returned, 
and very much of the failure of production to-day and 
the poor quality of fruit and susceptibility to disease 
are due to lack of sufficient available plant food, partic¬ 
ularly potash and phosphoric acid. There is not a ques¬ 
tion but that orchards constantly cultivated or cultivated 
in connection with the Autumn growth of a cover crop 
will produce larger fruit and perhaps more fruit than 
those in mulch or pastured with sheep, but it is equally 
true that the fruit will be coarse-grained, of poorer 
quality, not as well colored, nor will it keep as well, and 
buyers now recognize these as facts and prefer those 
apples grown by the latter methods. Each method of 
treatment has its advantages and disadvantages, but I 
will confine myself to a consideration of the system of 
SHEEPING THE ORCHARD, or pasturing with 
sheep^ To grow apples profitably certain conditions are 
essential and must be maintained. 1. The orchard must 
be fed. 2. The grass and weeds must be kept down, at 
least so as not to rob the trees of needed moisture. 
3. The sprouts and suckers that are always starting at 
the roots must be kept down. 4. The loss by insect 
depredations must be kept as low as possible. 5. Dis¬ 
eases must be fought and kept in check. In no other 
way can these conditions be so easily, effectually, 
cheaply and profitably met as by sheeping the orchard. 
FEEDING THE ORCHARD.—For the constant cul¬ 
tivator or the cultivator who uses cover crops to make 
AN OLD-FASHIONED APPLE ORCHARD USED AS SHEEP PASTURE. Fig. 266. 
an application of potash and phosphoric acid in any 
form will cost a good deal in ready money and some¬ 
thing more in labor to apply. The same is true to him 
who follows the mulch method. How is it with the man 
who sheeps his orchard? By the proper selection of 
sheep and foods for them he can furnish the orchard 
with all these elements, and with an abundance of nitro¬ 
gen, and not only without cost, but at an absolute profit. 
It will cost a good deal of money for the labor necessary 
so to cultivate the orchards as to prevent all growth of 
grass and weeds, and even if the cultivation and cover 
crop system be followed, the expense is not lessened. 
With the mulch system much labor is necessary to cut 
and pile the grass and weeds about the trees, and but 
few soils produce sufficient growth adequately to mulch 
the trees to prevent injury from drought in a very dry 
time. With the orchard properly pastured with sheep 
not a weed will be allowed, and the grass will be 
cropped so close and the sheep will’so trample under the 
trees that no more moisture will pass from the ground 
than under the best system of dust mulching, or not as 
much as would be lost by the continuous growth under 
the mulch system. No one will for a moment question 
the ability of the sheep effectually to keep down all 
sprouts and suckers. The only objection that can be 
raised is that they will eat all the leaves, limbs and 
fruit as high as they can reach, but this will be no detri¬ 
ment where the orchard is old enough so they only eat 
from the lower limbs. Those on upper limbs will be so 
much better as to more than make up for all taken by 
the sheep. 
KEEPING DOWN INSECT INJURY.—It will be 
very much easier to get about with the sprayer in an 
orchard in sheep pasture than in one mulched, and very 
much more so than in one under cultivation. But be¬ 
sides this there is no way in which the depredation of 
the Codling moth can so easily be overcome as by sheep. 
Where they are properly kept, with no infested orchards 
within a distance where moths will come to re-infest, a 
flock of sheep will entirely eradicate the Codling moth. 
Where the Apple 
maggot prevails no 
other method, except 
constant picking up 
and destroying the in¬ 
fested apples, will be 
of any use in keeping 
them in check, but 
they cannot exist 
where sheep are pas¬ 
tured. No one claims 
any virtue in sheep as 
preventives of disease 
any further than as 
by helping to feed the 
orchard, it will ma¬ 
terially assist in keep- 
i n g the orchard 
healthy and help it to 
resist diseases. But 
it will be very much 
easier to get about in 
an orchard well kept 
down with sheep to 
spray properly. The 
last, but by no means 
least, advantage in the 
keeping of sheep is 
that while all other 
methods of treating 
orchards are a source 
of continued outgo 
and expense, attended 
with the entire loss 
of land for any other 
purpose, so that in a 
year of failure of the 
apple crop the orchardist has to draw on his surplus to 
meet the deficit, the sheep, independent of the advan¬ 
tages to the orchard, can be made a source of revenue. 
In other words, 100 sheep can be put into an orchard, fed 
suitable food to enrich the trees, do all that has been 
claimed for them and actually make the owner money 
over and above paying for the food consumed. There is 
but one drawback or disadvantage in this plan of treat¬ 
ing an orchard. The ordinary orchardist hardly knows 
what to do with the sheep at such times as they cannot 
run in the orchard. But there are ways in which they 
can be used in all the fruit-growing States by which they 
can be utilized so as to be profitable as an aid to the 
apple grower. J. s. woodward. 
R. N.-Y.—The picture shown on this page is not taken 
from one of Mr. Wooward’s orchards. *It represents an 
old orchard in southern New Jersey, which is used as a 
pasture. Some of these old-fashioned high-headed or¬ 
chards may be brought back to a fair degree of profit by 
reasonable care. They are never equal to young low¬ 
headed trees, but can usually be easily seeded to grass 
and thus make good pasture for hogs or sheep. 
