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Plowing From Or Towards

Categories: Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation

Which is the proper way to plow an orchard? First to plow to the trees

and then to plow from them, or to plow from the trees and then to them,

and your reasons? I have had many arguments with my neighbor farmers.



There is difference of opinion everywhere as to whether the first

plowing should be toward or away from the trees. In places where the

soil is pretty heavy and the rainfall is apt to be quite large, plowing
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toward the trees and opening a dead furrow near the center seems to

promote rapid distribution of surplus water. If the rainfall is less and

arrangements for deep penetration are more necessary, the plowing can

well be away from the trees, so as to direct the water toward the row.

It is, of course, exceedingly important in this case, that the land

should be worked back before it has a chance to dry out by exposure and

this is one of the chief objections to the practice, because one is apt

to let the land lie away from the trees, hoping for a late rain which

may not come. Whatever theoretical advantages there may be in either of

these methods, they can only be secured by the greatest care to avoid

the dangers which attend them. This uncertainty is the reason why people

so generally disagree as to which is the best practice, and they are

right in disagreeing.



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