Читать книгу How to Make an Orchard in British Columbia - John Thomas Bealby - Страница 4
ОглавлениеSOIL—ROCKS—WATER—TIMBER
Soil.—In British Columbia pretty nearly all soils alike will grow fruit-trees. The superiority of the fruit of British Columbia is due very largely to a factor which counts for much more than soil—namely, the climate. Not that all soils are of equal value; far from it. Naturally, some are better adapted for producing good fruit than others. The best soil, and the soil which prevails over by far the greater part of the region, is a red or chocolate-coloured sandy loam, generally rather light in texture, fairly well supplied with mineral constituents, but lacking in nitrogen. It is soil that is easily worked, and consequently is inexpensive to manage and keep in proper condition. After a good crop of young red clover, or similar leguminous plant, has been ploughed in, this red loam acquires the proper texture, or degree of associated friability and compactness, that is best suited for orchard trees. (See further, in Chapter VIII., under section on Clover Crops.) The roots are able to work in it with great ease and rapidity, and it promotes the formation of the network of small and delicate fibrous roots and rootlets which have so much to do with the actual production of the fruit.
Another variety of soil which gives excellent results is of a fine powdery consistency, whitish-grey in colour. This does not cake or run together any more than the red sandy loam does. It has a somewhat silky appearance, and almost a greasy feel. This is known as “volcanic ash.” It is of remarkable natural fertility, as also is the red sandy loam, and thus is in every way eminently adapted for growing fruit. This soil is met with, amongst other localities, at the southern end of Okanagan Lake, at Summerland, and elsewhere, and at certain places along the Canadian-United States boundary line.
Still another variety of soil, of probably even greater inherent natural fertility, is known as “black muck.” It is heavily impregnated with decayed and rotting vegetable matter, and is found as a rule in the bottoms of the valleys close beside the river or lake which in most cases occupies the greater part of the floor of the valley. But usually this land must be drained before any use can be made of it. As a general rule it admits of ready drainage by the simple expedient of digging a surface trench to the river or lake, or down to some lower lying spot. When drained, this sort of soil is first-rate for growing vegetables, especially for all kinds of root crops.
Gravelly tracts are an abomination, and to be avoided at all costs.
In a few localities really astonishing results are obtained on ground that in some ways is little better than gravel. It consists principally of disintegrated granite or minute particles of rock intermingled with sand and larger stones. This soil contains almost no humus or decayed vegetable matter, and when dry sets hard, after the manner of cement, and throughout the summer it is pretty nearly always dry. As a veteran fruit-grower observed once when walking across land of this description, “You might turn Niagara across it, and it would still be thirsty.” In fact, it wears such a hungry look that a good British or Canadian farmer would consider it not worth a dime or sixpence an acre of any man’s money. And yet this soil does, beyond a doubt, produce an abundance of fruit of excellent quality, yielding plums to the value of $850 per acre, and cherries that bring in over $1,500 per acre, and even apples that have won prizes in competition with the best fruit of the American Continent. Still, such land is not to be recommended, chiefly because of the great difficulty of getting quite young trees and every kind of intermediate crop to start and take root properly in it.
Do not on any consideration buy hardpan or alkali soils. The former generally lies a short distance below the surface, and is extremely hard, tough, and impervious. No roots can work in it; it holds no nutriment; it prevents the free passage of moisture. Alkali soils or soils impregnated with excess of salts are indicative of a process of desiccation or drying up, or of excessive evaporation, consequent upon faulty irrigation. However induced, they are inimical to plant life generally, and consequently are altogether unsuited for growing fruit.
Rocks.—British Columbia is almost everywhere a predominatingly mountainous country. The mountains consist superficially in great part of bare rock. Consequently it is not surprising to find that their lower slopes are often littered with fragments of rock, of all sizes and lying in all positions. Intrinsically these rock fragments are not in themselves inimical to good orchards. If you lift up a stone on a mountain-side in even the drier part of the year, you will frequently find that the soil underneath it is moist and damp. Therefore the presence of stones of a fair size scattered over the surface of your orchard slope means so much more moisture for your trees to draw upon in the height of the summer, when the ground on the surface tends to become dry and parched. On the other hand, rocks of the size of boulders, and so also a heavy accumulation of stones, no matter what their size, are a great hindrance to cultivation. They can only be described as a nuisance, and they are a decided eyesore. The best time to remove them is before planting begins. If they are only few in number or very thinly scattered over the surface, they can be left, either permanently or for removal at some later time when work is somewhat slack. The best way to dispose of these is to empty them into some hollow or gully or hole, which it would be an improvement to fill up, or use them for making rubble walls for cellars, barns, or other buildings, or for building fence walls. If they are large they must be cracked with charges of dynamite or by fire, and the fragments removed. When using fire, make the stones red-hot, then pour on them the coldest water you can get. That will generally crack them well. Neither a scattering of loose surface stones nor a few big boulders are so wholly objectionable as a hard gravel-bed. This you can neither dig nor plough, except at almost super-human cost; and even if you do plant it, the trees will be almost certain to show in divers ways the effects of the dryness which is incidental to such a gravel-patch.
Water.—Marshy ground, and, in fact, any low-lying spot in which stagnant water stands for any length of time, are alike places to be avoided. To plant an orchard in such situations is to condemn it to failure from the start. On the other hand, water is a prime necessity. In a district in which irrigation is absolutely essential to the production of fruit, as, for instance, in most of the Okanagan Valley, water is, of course, a sine qua non. When buying land in such a district, it is every bit as important to make sure that there does exist a good water-supply, and to see that it is adequate for all purposes, as it is to satisfy yourself that the land itself is right. And even in districts where irrigation is not absolutely essential to the production of fruit crops, or is not indeed needed at all, it is a wise thing to make sure that water can readily be obtained if it is needed. This does not mean that there must be a running stream through the middle of the orchard. It is sufficient if there is one not very far distant, or else some kind of a supply stored up for possible use in the height of the summer. In several cases a good well is all that is required. In a non-irrigated country the natural drainage off the mountains, known to fruit-growers as “seepage,” is as a rule all that the trees require in the form of sub-soil moisture. But in this respect the conditions vary. In some localities it is found that the quite young trees need more moisture than Nature supplies; in other localities—e.g., in Hood River, Oregon—it is the older trees, the trees which are bearing heavily, that call out for more moisture than Nature gives them.
Timber.—When inspecting fruit land with the idea of buying, it is also prudent to study the timber on it, and, if you can do so, obtain a reliable estimate of what it will cost to clear the land for the plough. It is not so much the number of the trees to the acre as their size and the kind of tree that make the expense of clearing mount up rapidly. It costs proportionally much more to get out a tamarack 2 feet or more in diameter than it does to lift a black poplar or a fir 6 inches through. The former might cost up to 2 dollars, or even more, to remove, whereas the latter could be pulled over by a horse in two minutes at, comparatively speaking, no cost at all.
In many cases the timber can be cut and sold, either for railway ties (i.e., sleepers) or for cord-wood (for burning in domestic and other stoves); or if it consists of cedar, it can be used for building barns, stables, or even a log house. In any case, it becomes of value, and to that extent the money which it brings in is so much deducted from the cost of the land. In some districts—e.g., the Arrow Lakes—the local Fruit-Growers’ Union collects and sells the timber after the rancher has cut it and hauled it down to the water’s edge.
