The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1917-04-25

branches of equal Importance, and
CD forming the top with a central
leader and with several secondary
branches which radiate from it. A
practice followed by not a few is to
plant the tree without shaping the top
and with little or no heading back of
the branches or other pruning. This
practice calls for no comment other
than q statement of disapproval
The method most widely used is
main frame or scaffold branches. This
method properly followed produces q
tree with an 'open CENTER
TiIlage and Soil Fertility.
AS q rule, commercial cherry or
chards are given clean tillage during
the growing season, or until about the
middle of July. The principal excep-
ton to this practice is where an Or
chard in high state Of cultivation is
seeded to clover or some other suit
able crop and maintained for season
or two on sod-mulch basis.
The tillage OF orchards cannot be
governed by arbitrary rules. In gen.
eral it may be said that good tillage
for peach orchard would be likewise
good tillage for cherry orchard. The
object is to conserve moisture by
maintaining a finely pulverized surface
mulch of soil until midseason. IF the
tillage which an orchard receives ac-
complishes this in full measure, other
important results that have to do with
the fertility Of the soil will generally
follow. Where the fruit is picked by
the middle Of July, at least one cult
walton after the harvest may be desir-
able.
Cover crops are used extensively In
most important cherry-producing Sec
tons. These are generally put in at
the last cultivation, whether that oc-
ours before or after the fruit is
picked. Vetch and red clover are the
leguminous crops most commonly
used in cherry orchards. Soy beans
have been tried in a few orchards in
Michigan and New York with good
cow-horn turnips are the most COM
mon nonleguminous cover crops, the
first two being used the most extern
sively. Several of these crops, par
ticularly vetch and buckwheat, are so
handled each year by some growers as
to mature sufficient seed for their
cover-crop needs the following year.
An inquiry often received at the
United States department Of agricul-
ture is "What fertilizers are good for
cherries" To this question no spe
cific answer can be made. In prac-
tice, cherry growers find that it pays
to feed their trees fairly literally.
The principles of tillage, the main
tenance of soil fertility, including the
use of cover crops and rates of seed
ing, and suggestions about the use of
fertilizers are discussed more in de-
tail in Farmers Bulletin 631, to
which the reader is referred in the
present connection.
Unexplained Crops.
A fruit grower naturally desires
by an orchard during the nonproduc-
tive period of the trees where it can
be secured without detriment to them.
The most satisfactory crops to inter-
plant are those which need the same
general tillage as the trees, which do
not compete too heavily for moisture,
and for which there is d good mar
ket. Beans, peas, tomatoes, and 9TH
er vegetables of like cultural require
ments are examples of the least OBJ
jectiOnable unless the greed Of the
grower impels him to plant it too close
to the trees. Potatoes are doubtful,
in some sections at least, since dig
ging them In the autumn might be
equivalent to late cultivation, result
ing in the stimulation of tree activi-
ties at an undesirable time.
All small grains are seriously OBJ
jectionable, as they permit no tillage.
Strawberries in bearing are not usual
| ~ cultivated until after the fruit is
picked. Their fruiting period is dur
ing the time when tillage is Of the
greatest Importance to the cherry
trees. Though raspberries and black
berries admit of and require much the
same tillage as cherries, their demands
| upon the soil moisture are so great
that fruit trees frequently suffer seri-
ously in competition with them, and
their use in orchards is not advised.
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