Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1874 — Plowing Orehards Shallow. [ARTICLE]

Plowing Orehards Shallow.

If the land is plowed near large fruit trees the plow' should be adjusted to run only a few inches deep. The most plausible argument that can be advanced against the practice of plowing the ground around fruit trees df any kind is the fact that every tree will send out a system of coronal roots just beneath the surface of the soil, which will again throw out branch rootlets in a horizontal direction, all of which will continue to multiply until the entire surface of the ground is completely occupied with open mouths-of hungry rootlets, ready to drink in the first supply of nourishment that is dissolved by the falling showers. It is as much a legitimate habit of a fruit treo to provide a close network of roots near the surface of the ground as it is to send other roots downward igto the earth. Every fruit tree, most deciduous ornamental and timber trees, as well as evergreens of all kinds, when growing on dry upland, will send down a long tap-root, for the purpose of reaching moisture to supply the growing branches during a dry period in the growing season. Let the tap-root be removed, and the tree will make but slow growth, because its habit has been interfered with. The same is true touching the upper system of coronal or secondary roots near the surface, of the ground. These are what are properly called the feeders of the parent stem. They should not be mutilated nor removed, as they usually are cut oft" and torn away by the plow'. All vegeta> ion should be kept down around fruit trees as far from the body as the extremity of the longest branches, by hoeing ttie surface over frequently or by the application of a few inches in depth of a mulch. Fruit trees may bear well when every coronal root has been removed with "the plow; but if those roots had not been removed the crop of fruit would have been more abundant.— Aw York Paper. ■ "V