FRUIT AND ORNAMENTAL NURSERY STOCK 
Proper cultivation in a Peach orchard. Up, down and across, stirs the soil on all sides of the tree. 
FERTILIZING 
No two pieces of land are alike in fertilizer re¬ 
quirements. Make your soil fine and loose before 
you plant, and you will not need to apply so much 
fertilizer, if you need any at all. Grind it up with 
disc or cutaway, spring-tooth and spike harrows, 
after a thorough plowing, till it is like corn and oats 
chop. Don’t be afraid to go 8 or 10 inches deep, 
even in an orchard. 
The plant-food elements that need to be applied, 
to a greater or less extent, are nitrogen, potash and 
phosphorus. Nitrogen usually is considered to be 
the growing food. It is supplied to the soil best and 
cheapest by means of leguminous crops, such as 
the clovers and peas. It can also be supplied by 
dried blood, barnyard manure, nitrate of soda and 
other forms. Potash is considered the food that is 
needed to ripen and color fruit. Phosphorus helps 
to harden the wood, make it strong to carry fruit, 
healthy and able to withstand winters. 
Study fertilizers before you apply them. If you 
can mix them in the right proportions and thor¬ 
oughly, buy the most concentrated forms of potash, 
nitrogen and phosphorus. Always figure how many 
pounds of the actual foods should be applied to the 
acre or tree, and then get this actual food the cheap¬ 
est and easiest way you can. You should get prices 
and freight rates on all kinds of fertilizer from 
several different firms, and then get the real analysis 
figures as a basis for buying and applying what you 
need. 
Stable (horse) manure always is good on apples, 
unless the trees are making too much growth and 
are threatened with fire-blight. Get the commercial 
fertilizer on the ground evenly. For trees, apply it 
over a space at least twice as wide as the branches 
cover. Heavy land that contains much organic 
(vegetable) matter usually needs lime. Lime is of 
great benefit to trees if not used to excess. 
SPRAYING 
If you want salable fruit and healthy trees you’ve 
got to spray every year. If you are not going to 
spray the trees it would be best not to plant an 
orchard. San Jose scale on peach and apple, codlin- 
moth on apple, curculio and brown-rot on peach, 
are all controlled surely by proper spraying. 
Get the catalogues of spraying machinery. They 
contain mines of information. Write the United 
States Department of Agriculture and your own 
state agricultural or horticultural department. Get 
all the bulletins and other publications on the subject. 
See that all details of spraying are carefully looked 
after. Examine the trees closely and often, and 
learn to identify the enemies. If you don’t know 
them, send samples of the infected twigs, leaves or 
fruit to the Department of Agriculture, Washington, 
D. C., for identification. The experiment stations 
also will tell you what the trouble is. When you 
spray, remember that successful control of the 
enemies depends on doing the work at the right 
time, on applying the right mixture, at the right 
strength, and putting it on in the right way. You’ve 
got to spray thoroughly—coat the bark and twigs 
and leaves all over the trees. Be particular to 
cover the twig-ends and the buds and the fruit- 
spurs. Drive the spray down and up and crossways, 
into the cups of the blossoms and into the crevices 
of bark and forks. For the spraying just after the 
blossom petals fall, use a nozzle that gives a coarse, 
driving spray. For all other sprayings, use a nozzle 
