The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-08-08
THE APPLE ORCHARD.

x1G A6x4G V0V0A6O.
There is nothing more common
than to hear farmers in all the east
ern section of the country say I'VE
cannot grow apples any more as we
once did," Now, the climate is not
to blame for this, and if apples once
grew we'll with you is it not worth
while to study the cause of their fail
ure now?
Men realize that for the growing of
their annual crops they must cultivate
we'll and keep up the fertility of the
soil. They do not try to grow corn
and wheat at the same time on the
same field, for they know that it can
not be done successfully, but when it
comes to the orchard they assume
that tree can not only take care of
itself like the trees in the forest, but
that they can crop the land for other
things at the same time and still get
crops of apples. Herein lies the
greatest of all the troubles in apple
growing. So long as the soil was
virgin soil and abounding in plant
food the trees throve in spite of ne
glect, but as they gradually robbed
the soil assisted by the crops planted
among them there was soon a failure,
for trees as we'll as other crops need
plenty of available plant food in the
soil.
Another thing that apple trees es-
pecially need is an abundance of soil
moisture. 1t is useless to apply fer
tilizers to any plant if there is not
moisture enough in the soil to dis
solve them. Hence the importance
for providing a soil abounding in
,ss-s-t-1s1s- si-s-sS r-is.in tire r1ris-
ture needed for the solution of the
plant food applied. Few growers
fully realize the amount of the vari.
Gus forms of plant food that an apple
orchard takes from the soil. At the
recent American Apple Growers
Congress in st. Louis Professor Clo-
thier gave some very striking figures
in this regard which were taken from
the experiments made at the Agri-
cultural Experiment Station of Cor
nell University. He showed that
with an average yield (and this is a
small one in good orchard) of 200
bushels per acre, that this 200 bushels
of fruit would remove from the soil
thirteen pounds of nitrogen, only one
pound phosphoric acid and nineteen
pounds of potash, and the apples
alone would remove from each acre
$2.45 worth of plant food. Then the
growth of the wood and the leaves of
the tree must be taken into account,
and it takes very considerable
amount of food to keep up the activi-
ty of large tree. Altogether there
was in the orchard a demand for
plant food to a total value of $o.oI
per acre.
He compared this with crop of
corn making fifty busnels per acre,
and showing that the corn removed
little more than the fruit trees, and
yet every farmer knows that he can
not expect fifty bushels of corn per
acre unless he keeps up the fertility
of the soil, and yet we see the same
men trying to get apples from a soil
that has been drained by the trees in
this way for generation, and not
only drained by the trees, but called
upon to grow hay crop or to pasture
stock. Is it any wonder that we
cannot grow apples as we'll as we once
did?
The statement we have given shows
that the demand for phosphoric acid
is very small as compared with that
for nitrogen and potash than a crop
of corn of fifty bushels per acre, and
demand it every year, for there can
be no rotation of crops here. In
their young state, when growth is
what we want, applications of stable
manure will be of great help, not only
in furnishing nitrogen but in giving
some humus making matter to the
soil. If Kainit has been used in the
preservation of this manure it will
not only make the manure better in
preventing the loss of nitrogen, but
it will add potash that is needed.
When the trees have reached maturi-
ty we advise the seeding down to
grass. But not in grass to be cut for
hay, but grass to be cut only as a
mulch for the trees and left on the
ground, cutting it several times dur
ing the season. Then give the grass
top dressing annually of a fertilizer
composed of 800 pounds of acid phos-
phate, 800 pounds of cottonseed meal
and 400 pounds of muriate of potash
| to make a ton. Use this literally
and get good growth of grass and
every time you cut the grass spread
it to decay under the trees as far as
the limbs extend and little further.
Then if you attend to the spraying
you can grow apples just like you did
in your boyhood and probably better
"I SAT with my girl one night and
every time a star fell I got kiss
But soon quit that pastime. Yes
couldn't stand it. !"
"How's that?"
"She began ringing in lightning