The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-11-15

deliberately answer some of these in
quiries. l will try to remember the
verdict of a church committee that
tried a man for some offense: 1--WE
find that the brother has not done
anything wrong, but he must not do
so any more" l will not plead guilty
of neglect, under the unexpected cir
cumstances, but I promise not to do
so any more if l can help it.
4
DR.. G. H. Burbank, of Cashmere,
Wash, asks the following questions
under date of Sept. %: at is with
great pleasure write you of the great
interest l take in your articles in The
Ranch. Among the many things from
your pen, none has interested me
more than the one under date of Sept.
Is. under the head, Alfalfa in an Or
chard. Now I am preparing land for
planting, and since reading your art1-
Gle. | am asking myself why one
might not with profit to the purse and
benefit to the young trees, SOW strip
of alfalfa between the rows Say the
trees were twenty-five feet apart each
way. Ct want no filters that I win
hesitate to cut out few years later,
cultivate a strip eight feet wide, in
the center of which plant the trees,
the balence of seventeen feet, alfalfa
where one could thus secure new
hay?" Before l mention DR.. Burbank's
other questions, 1 think it better to
answer him relative to alfalfa in an
orchard. 1t would be better not to
SOW alfalfa in his orchard in the man
ner here described if he ever intends
to get it out of the orchard. 1t is a
nice thing to think of a strip of al
falfa seventeen feet wide between his
tree rows, but it will not stay in
these bounds.
Alfalfa is a dreadful thing to spread,
as bad in my judgment as blue grass
in the Mississippi valley. 1t will soon
spread to all parts of the orchard and
the alfalfa roots will go down among
the apple tree roots where they can
neither be plowed out nor grubbed out
without ruin to the trees. Ii the doc
tor will hunt up my articles on le-
gumes and read them he will see that
[ have not advocated sowing orchards
to alfalfa, but, on the contrary, have
mentioned this very difficulty of get
ting rid of it. 1t is true that | have
spoken of its benefits in my peach
orchard but stated that we did not
fight it's spreading there because we
expected soon to dig out the old peach
trees. | further said that | am con-
WINGED that it would be better to have
alfalfa all over our old orchards than
to keep on practicing clean culture
and leaving the soil to bake in the hot
sun. But 1 have been very clear on
the point that there are other le-
gumes, such as clovers, the vetches,
the COW peas and the soy beans, that
it would be better to grow in our
orchards We are sowing crimson
clover in some of our orchards and eX-
pect to try COW peas next summer
see last issue of The Ranch-and we
think we shall SOW some vetch.
DR.. Burbank raises the question of
varieties of apples to plant and as
there are other inquiries on this point,
l will try to make my answer fit all
the cases. These questions have been
answered again and again but they
keep coming up. We do not complain
of this. Our paper is growing very
rapidly in circulation and these new
readers do not know what has been
said in former issues. And then we
know how easy it is to forget till we
get interested in these matters.
DR.. Burbank asks about growing
pears on land above the ditch and de-
pending on the subirrigation for mois-
ture. / could not tell him what is
best in such a case. And here / want
to say that questions on locality can
only be answered in a general way.
A lady writes and asks if frosts will be