OCR Text |
Show READY FOR TREE PLANTING On Land That Is to Be Irrigated Ground Should Be Carefully Smoothed. Inasmuch as a large acreage of fruit trees will be planted next spring a few suggestions in regard to preparing pre-paring land for orchard planting may be of value to the prospective planters, plant-ers, writes R. W. Fisher In Field and Farm. Much of the semi-arid land in the West has a small amount of humus hu-mus in it and for that reason it Is not the best plan to set out trees on newly new-ly broken sod. By plowing the lard from 8 to 10 inches deep one or two years in advance of planting time and f growing some crop In the meantime, I it will be put In much better condl- I tion for tree growth than If the trees I are set out Immediately after plowing. On land that is to be Irrigated the f ground should' be carefully leveled h and smoothed before any crops are planted. This leveling Is very essen- J tlal to good results In irrigating. On most of the soil in this country a 1 leveler ten or twelve feet wide and J from sixteen to eighteen feet long I with three cross pieces of three by j six inch material will give good serv- I ice. This leveler can jyo made that I it will cut the dlrtj "vhe high I spots and deposit itv' Nlaces, i-J and by going over three times the. ' ln good condition- for ' " ing should br "done f after plowing whj j .i the sbm be harrowed har-rowed andlanted to some grain crop. A good crop to be grown on the land thatjis to be planted to orchards Is oats a?.d red clover. The oats and clover seed are sown in the spring; the oats harvested In the fall when there will be a growth of six or eight Inches of clover. This will afford pasturage during the winter months and the following year one crop oil clover hay can be cut and the second crop plowed under. This clover and oat crop should provide humus that is very necessary for tree growth. On many of our soils an orchard planted on land prepared a year or two in advance ad-vance of tree planting will make as large a growth in eight or ten years as trees that were planted one or two years previous on land that had not received the preliminary preparation. The depth of plowing orchard soils depends somewhat upon the character of the soil and the subsoil. In very loose soli underlaid with light subsoil sub-soil it Is not necessary to plow so deeply as on soil underlaid with heavy clay. Li't soils may be plowed as shallow && six inches and still give good results. Heavy soils Bhould be plowed from eight to twelve Inches deep and in some cases subsoiled to a depth of eighteen or twenty inches. If the soil is dry at planting time" the" trees should be irrigated immediately after they are Bet out. This irrigation should be done by making a small furrow fur-row near the tree row and turning the water from the furrow into the tree hole. |