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Show CULTIVATION PLANS FOR ORCHARDS VARY Local Conditions Have Much to Do in Determining Which Method Is Practicable. Cultivation methods for orchards vary greatly, and local conditions have so much to do in determining which is best and most profitable for any given locality that no hard and fast rule can be established. The object of orchard cultivation Is to conserve moisture and plant food and aerate the soil. About fifteen years ago the Missouri state fruit experiment station undertook a series of experiments to determine the best method of orchard cultivation. Five systems were established. One plat was planted to cowpeas in the spring. The peas were harvested and the ground disked and sowed to rye late In the summer. The rye occupied the ground during the winter and was turned under In the spring In time to sow more peas. Another plat was sowed to clover and allowed to grow for two seasons, then plowed the third spring and given clean cultivation the third summer. The following spring clover was sowed and the rotation started again. A third plat was planted plant-ed to crimson clover and vetch continuously, contin-uously, thus keeping the ground covered cov-ered winter and summer. Still another an-other plat was left in sod, and the fifth one was given clean cultivation year after year. The results were In the order mentioned, men-tioned, cowpeas and rye being first, clover second, vetch and crimson clover third, while It was apparently a tie between clean cultivation and continuous sod as to which was worse. Either one of the latter bid fair to campletely ruin the trees. These experiments ex-periments proved that some sort of systematic cultivation not only pays, but Is necessary to the continued Ufa of an orchard. |