Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1898-04-07
Value of Cultivation.

One of the most important things In
the growing Of fruit is good thorough
cultivation. If were to name only one
thing essential to fruit growing, J
would say that one thing was thorough
cultivation. For instance in fruit
trees. We all think that when the
spring sunshine comes. the fruit tree
is all ready to send forth blossoms, ana
II the temperature and weather are
suitable, we will have crop of fruit.
Now the fruit grower knows that the
fruit buds are not developed during the
winter, nor during the spring, but de-
veloped the season before. and II you
are going to have fruit the coming year,
you must have prepared the foundation
Tor 1t last year. Essential to the de-
velopment of fruit buds is good thor
ough cultivation. If you have good Gull
tivation you have good foliage; II you
nave good foliage at the base OF every
healthy leaf you will have a bud. and
IT the conditions are right, a proper
percentage of those buds will be de-
veloped into fruit buds and there WILL De
stored up plant food not only sufhclent
to develop those buds into fruit buds'
but to make them so strong that tle
northeast winds will not destroy their
vitality to such an extent that they
Will drop from the tree. When l see
q tree along in August or September
with leaf surface that is small, ana
practically stripped Of healthy folage'
l am as certain as I am that the sun
Will shine when the clouds clear away
that the man who has that tree upon
his place will not realize any fruit from
1t the coming season, because the con-
dltions are such it cannot properly de-
velop fruit buds. In the seasons we
have had in the past, in the month OF
May we have sometimes had storm
from the Northwest of forty-eight
hours duration when the temperature
was very low and the leaves on that
side of the tree, which were young and
tender, were whipped about by the
breezes until the foliage was so bruised
it either dropped from the tree or be-
came diseased. and there would not be
any fruit upon that side of the tree the
next season. The storm had the same
effect as lack of cultivation. If you
have your fruit trees we'll cultivated,
you will be almost certain to have Z
crop of fruit every season and not every
other year.
One of the essential things for an
orchard, particularly one in bearing, is
to have the ground we'll fertilized. II
you have good soil, good cultivation
and then add to it the necessary fertili-
cation to keep up plant growth you will
have a crop of fruit every year unless
the spring frosts are too severe upon
the buds.
There is no reason why an orchard
cannot bear every year with good care
full cultivation. Last year in my own
orchard I had very little fruit, and l
attributed it to the fact that my orch
ard, being sown to clover the year be-
fore, received no cultivation, and the
season being unusually dry, it did not
perfect the fruit buds sufficiently, but
during the two seasons before, when
the orchard had received thorough Gull
tivation, I had good crops of fruit.
know from the reports of the horticul-
tural society that orchards which have
received good cultivation have yielded
a good crop of fruit every year.-H. M.
Dunlap.