By JAMES McNICOL, Lost Springs, Marion county, Kansas.
Orchard culture being my subject, of course the varieties of trees are
supposed to be carefully selected and planted; but the distance apart is
important. If too close, no matter how thorough the cultivation, they
will suffer for moisture; and if too wide apart the winds will play
havoc with the trees and fruit. What is best for this locality, to break
the prevailing south winds and yet have plenty of space for the roots to
find moisture? Is it better to plant closely north and south or east and
west? I would prefer close rows running east and west, as each row would
help break the wind when the trees in the row reached each other--then
how close in the row and how far apart the rows? I would plant the trees
twenty feet apart in the rows and the rows thirty feet apart. I would
like to recommend planting a row of cherry, dwarf pear, plum or peach
between each apple row, provided they are cut out when they rob each
other of moisture.
Eternal vigilance is the price of fruit, but, in central Kansas, to
eternal vigilance you must add thorough cultivation. For a few years
cultivated crops may be grown, leaving a good space next to the trees to
be cultivated--not to grow up in weeds. Do not, like one of my
neighbors, cultivate the corn row, that cost only about five cents a row
for seed, four times, and leave the tree row, which cost two dollars per
row, uncultivated. Do not use a stirring plow; it will hill up earth
around the trees too much. With a lister you can list in your corn or
furrow out potato rows, running east and west one year, and north and
south the next. Growing crops for five or six years is long enough; then
cultivation should be done with a disc, an Acme or a common harrow; I
prefer a reversible disc. Acme is all right if you do not let the weeds
get the start of you (which you should never do, but you will
sometimes); then the disc is the implement.
Whatever tool you use keep it a going, east, west, and diagonal, and
when blessed with a good rain through the summer don't wait till the
weeds get started, but cultivate as soon as dry enough to form a dust
mulch. Few seem to know the value of a dust mulch. A high state of
cultivation can be kept up in the orchard with what implements the
farmer has. Use the one-horse, five-tooth cultivator close to the trees,
and the two-horse cultivator for the middle, going both ways; then
pulverize with the harrow; use the harrow often. Six days' work at the
proper time will keep a five-acre orchard in good shape the whole
season. "But," says some one, "it doesn't pay; this is not a fruit
country." No, it is no fruit country, and never will be, to the one who
has no time to cultivate; but to the one that will there is a big
reward, for the very reason that it is not a fruit country.