OCR Text |
Show TO RESTORE PEAR ORCHARDS Application of Some Kind of Fertilizer Necessary to Renew Vitality Manure Is Best. After a pear orchard has borne two or three good crops of fruit, the trees should have an application of some sort of fertilizer to restore vitality. Good manure especially from the sheep pens is the cheapest and is better bet-ter for the soil than commercial fertilizers. ferti-lizers. Many growers overlook the matter of fertilizing their bearing bear-ing trees until they actually starve to death for the want of necessary food to preserve life and vigor to enable them to bear marketable market-able fruit. That a tree is straving is easily determined by the size of tha leaves and the fruit. In this respect, the dwarf pear is much more exacting than the standard. The dwarf re quires high manuring. Fertilizers must be applied closer to the base and roots, as the quince roots do not spread out like those of the standard pear. Of course, the standard will respond to good fertilization as the root system is widespread and deep however, how-ever, the trees do not feel the necessity neces-sity of plant food as the dwarfs do. The fear of pear blight has caused a few growers to abandon fertilization and hence their orchards have been in half starved condition. There is I not nearly the danger from fertiliza- k. tion that there is from plowing and digging around the trees or from over-irrigation over-irrigation which forces wood growth . and it is these tender shoots that catch the germs of disease every time. |