APPLE-CULTURE IN A NUTSHELL.
The following, from an essay by Professor Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural College, are valuable suggestions for apple-growers everywhere:
A young tree should be treated very much
as you would treat a hill of corn. Hoed
crops will answer in a young orchard; sowed
crops will do much harm to young trees. I
think it a good plan to keep young trees
mulched, and I am not sure but it is the
best of all ways to treat large or old trees as
long as they live. Mulch prevents the rapid
evaporation of moisture from the soil, keeps
the surface mellow, prevents the soil from
often freezing and thawing in winter and
becoming overheated in summer. Whether
or not to cultivate trees which have become
well established depends upon circumstances.
I have never seen an apple orchard which I
thought was injured by too frequent shallow
culture, but this may be the case in some
places, especially in warm climates or where
the soil is deep and very rich. Whether to
cultivate or not can be told by the looks of
the trees. If the color of the leaves in good
and the growth all right, and the trees bear
well of fine fruit, they are doing well enough
even if in grass. But if the leaves are pale,
the growth of the annual twigs much less
than a foot in length on trees set twelve
years, and the fruit small and poor, something in the matter, and they are suffering
for want of plough, harrow, or cultivator, or
a heavy mulch or coat of manure, or two or
more of these combined. The upper twigs
of trees set twelve years ought to grow 6 to
12 or more inches each year. To judge of
the condition of an apple tree is much like
judging of the condition of sheep in a pasture. Look at the sheep and not at the pasture. As long as the sheep are plump and
fat they are all right.