OCR Text |
Show PREPARE LAND FOR ORCHARDS Immediately Preceding Planting of Trees a Crop That Requires Cultivation Is Beneficial. New ground, however rich, needs to be subdued before treeB are set upon It. Such lands are apt to be full of Inequalities; hence every effort should be made to discover and remedy the poor spots that need manuring and the wet ones that require drainage, so that the trees when planted may grow evenly and rapidly from the very first. The cereal crops, such as wheat and oats, bring out these inequalities. Immediately Im-mediately preceding the planting of the orchard, a crop that requires thorough thor-ough cultivation, such as potatoes, is highly beneficial in putting the finishing fin-ishing touches upon this preparatory cropping system. Subsoil plowing should be resorted to in all cases where the lands are underlaid by a stiff stratum of soil. This is accomplished accom-plished by running a subsoil plow in the furrow left by the ordinary breaking break-ing plow, loosening the soil to an additional ad-ditional depth of twelve to eighteen Inches. Treating soils in this manner not only deepens them, but promotes good drainage and increases their water-holding capacity. This work is preferably done in the fall so as to get the benefit of the frost action in winter. It is not always essential that the whole area of. the ground be subsoiled before the trees are set. A strip of six or eight feet wide on which the trees are planted furnishes sufficient suf-ficient subsoiling for the first year. This subsoiled area may be increased by subsoiling a strip three to four feet wide on each side of it annually until the whole space is covered. This practice prac-tice stirs the ground deeply for the roots to penetrate in a way that could never be secured after they occupy the soil. Instead of using a subsoil plow, where the hard pan is very pronounced, pro-nounced, holes may be blasted to considerable con-siderable depth by the explosion of dynamite and the fall is the best time to do this work. What splendid orchards or-chards people might have if they would only follow our instructions. |