Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-06-27
HOGS, PEACHES AND PEAS
Combination Made a Tennessee
Farmer Money and Helped
Reclaim Waste Land.

The following letter is from young
man in central Tennessee. 1t contains
SO much good farming sense that the
methods described. may well be fol-
lowed in other states:
Father and l planted an orchard of
500 peach trees on thin land. Some
parts of the orchard were so rolling as
to wash badly.
I'VE cultivated in corn two years
after the trees were set.
In April we prepared the field as If
for corn, then run deep furrow every
twenty feet, going twice in each fur
row. Next we drew line at right
angles at one end of the field and start
ed each row from this line.
1.-THE trees were set 16 feet apart in
the row. The trees We're medium size
and as soon as they We're set in the
rows cut them back to a stub about
foot tall.
Zone boy and two men set the 500
trees in three days. The boy carried
the trees and handed them, one at a
time, to one of the men, who held 1t
in place while the other, with broad
wedding hoe, pulled the loose, mellow
soil in on the roots. The man who
held the tree in position firrned the soil
carefully around the tree.
This planting of the trees was done
about April 90. Between the 5th and
10th of May the field was planted to
corn. The rows of corn We're four feet
apart making four rows between each
two rows of trees. There was no corn
planted in the rows of trees, thus a
space of eight feet was left for each
row of trees.
THE second season we planted the
corn a little farther from the row of
trees to give them more air and sun
shine.
by the time the trees reached their
second years growth some of the limbs
nearly touched in the row. The third
season there was no crop grown in the
orchard, but cultivation went on just
the same.
1.-THE third season there were a few
peaches, as fine specimens as you
would care to see, and a fine crop of
buds was set for the fourth years
yield of fruit.
'The fourth and fifth seasons there
We're fine crops of peaches, but on the
sixth there was an entire failure.
after this we got about three crops
Of fruit out of about five years.
"a
COW peas and part to red clover each
making heavy crop.
1--WE cut the clover for hay and wher
the COW peas We're getting pretty wei
ripe we turned in the fattening hogs
which we had Just begun to feed fol
the market.
There was a heavy crop of peaches
that year all over the country and they
were so cheap that they did not taste
good. We sold them for what we
could at the orchard, for % cents pei
bushel.
Here is where the hogs came in
We noticed that the hogs would ca
GOV peas Cor while, then would ca
Of the fallen peaches.
I'VE shook all of the small and
great many of the nicer ones to tn
hogs,
II have never seen hogs thrive bet
ter and get fat quicker than they dit
on cow peas, peaches and a little oil
corn, about two ears per each hog pc
day.
I'VE have followed this up for year
and on land that was very thin whel
we planted to peaches. 1t is nov
growing good corn, tobacco, potatoe
and wheat
THE whole amount of manure mad
by the hogs, the stems and roots of tn
COW peas We're plowed under each veal
supplying the soil with fine lot O
humus.
PLANT peaches. COW peas and re
clover if you would fatten your hog
and build up your land"