Dry land agriculture Papers read at the second annual meeting of the Cooperative experiment association of the Great Plains area, held at Manhattan, Kans., June 26-27, 1907 .. . e manytrees planted in the old creek bed died. Having chosen the location, the next thing to consider is the prep-aration of the land. Two extreme methods have been practiced, bothwith fair success. One is merely to dig holes for the trees and setthem in the sod; the other is to plow the land several times duringone year, each time a little deeper, and again in the spring just beforeplanting. At this last plowing the t
Dry land agriculture Papers read at the second annual meeting of the Cooperative experiment association of the Great Plains area, held at Manhattan, Kans., June 26-27, 1907 .. . e manytrees planted in the old creek bed died. Having chosen the location, the next thing to consider is the prep-aration of the land. Two extreme methods have been practiced, bothwith fair success. One is merely to dig holes for the trees and setthem in the sod; the other is to plow the land several times duringone year, each time a little deeper, and again in the spring just beforeplanting. At this last plowing the tract is plowed in narrow lands,so that each row of trees will be planted in a dead furrow. Holes aredug and the trees set carefully with roots naturally spread. The topsoil should be thrown in first and carefully packed. Trees should notbe set when the ground is wet. The trees should be set and covered alittle deeper than they were in the nursery row. The holes should bedeep enough to be left with about 6 inches unfilled. This, with thefurrow in which the holes were dug, will make a reservoir for holdingstorm water until it can sink into the ground. The trees planted 130. Fig. 1.—Diagram of James Howells orchard, Flagler, Colo. 64 DRY-LAND AGRICULTURE. should be trimmed so as to balance the root system and the top. Cutoff all bruised roots and limbs and leave the limbs which are in posi-tion to make each tree well balanced. Pruning in after years willbe likely confined to cutting out interfering branches. Each yearmore wood will be cut out, until after a few years a wagon load ofbrush will be cut from an acre of apple trees each year. Pruning should be done justbefore the growthstarts in the spring,so that the woundswill quickly healbefore they are ex-posed to dry, coldwinds. The orchardshould be culti-vated carefully, soas to keep theweeds down andpreserve a soilmulch. The diskharrow is probablythe best tool wehave for main-taining a deepsoil mulch. Thesmoothing harrowused w
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