The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1909-08-01
Edited by F. Walden

the doubling man TO my own OrcnaruS
and show this so Enthusiastically that all
doubt will disappear. For instance:
Some years ago, alfalfa got start
along some of our head bitches and
finally spread into our peach orchard.
There the peach trees put on an in
creased vigor and the peaches on
those trees were larger and finer than
in the part of the orchard kept clean
by cultivation. Alfalfa spread into
part of my pear orchard, and there
the pear trees are larger, more vigor-
GUS and the fruit finer than that grown
anywhere else on the ranch.
am so completely convinced OF the
beneficial use of legumes in the bear
ing orchard that I would prefer any
kind of an orchard, after being well
established, to be seeded to alfalfa
than to keep the ground bare and
we'll cultivated. The objection to al
falfa in an orchard is that it is very
difficult to get rid of if one wishes
to clean it out. So we prefer SUCH
legumes as red clover (trifolium pra-
tense), crimson clover (trifolium in
carnatum), yellow trefoil (med1cago
lupulina), the vetches, peas or beans,
for some of these are ANIMALS or win
ter ANIMALS, and any of them can be
cleaned out much more easily than
alfalfa. | doubt, however, II any one
of these legumes is quite so good
nitrogen gatherer as alfalfa. Certain
ly not one of them has such tremen-
dous root system as alfalfa.
X
NV older son has just spent ten
DAYS with me while with his family
he was visiting the Alaska Yukon
Pacific Exposition. He reported the
condition of the legumes which we
are trying for the Government. The
readers of The Ranch know, if they
have cared to read what | have writ
ten about this matter, that we are
trying to find which of the legumes
will grow and do well in our orchards
and reseed themselves. Some would
not do any good, and we need not
make any report on these. AS the
; matter now stands, we find that the
hairy vetch (vicia villosa), yellow tre-
foil (medicago lupulina), sweet clover
(melilotus alba) and red clover (trl-
foilium pratense), are all proving yalu-
able in this respect.
The hairy vetch has proven to be
very vigorous grower and treasures
up a vast amount of nitrogen IN the
soil. We sowed 25 pounds of hairy
vetch seed in the spring of 1907. 1t
made a tremendous growth that sum-
mer. Many of the vines were ten and
twelve feet long. These vines Will
not stand erect, but they sprawl out
on the ground unless they can fasten
their tendrils to something standing
erect. In few cases some or these
vines fastened on to some low hanging
ample tree limbs and grew up almost
to the tops of some of the trees. The
amount of hay we could have made
from the rank growth OF this vetch
would have been great, but we did not
try to cut it for hay. During the WIN
ter our horses, running in the orchard,
ate most of this growth back to the
ground. They seemed to relish IT very
much. The roots lived through the
winter and another rank growth was
produced in the summer or l9Oo. A
heavy crop of seeds was produced that
summer and then the plants died. we
did nothing to this patch, not know
ing whether it was best to plow under
these seeds in the fall or not. we are
much pleased to find that another
heavy crop is growing this summer.
So we think we have solved the ques-
ton as to whether the hairy vetch
will reseed itself. I am of the opinion
that if we had plowed the 1908 crop
under in the fall that we would have
attained the same result so far as re-
seeding is concerned and then the
humus produced would have been a
valuable adjunct to the condition OF
the soil. My son says he will try to
save some of the seed of the hairy