Thus before many seasons it
may happen that most of the plant food of one or more kinds may be
nearly exhausted as far as that kind of plant is concerned that has
grown there continually, while there would be plenty of easily available
food for plants with a different kind of root system and different root
acids, etc. This is one reason why rotation of crops is so good; it
gives a combination of root acids and root systems to the soil during a
term of years, and it also frees the soil from one certain kind of
organism because it cannot survive the absence of the particular plants
on which it thrives.
Summer-Fallow Before Fruit Planting.
I recently bought a ranch at Sheridan, Placer county, and was intending
to put 10 acres to peaches and 50 acres to wheat or barley, but the
residents tell me that the land must be summer-fallowed before I can do
anything. The soil is a red loam and has not been plowed for six years.
Your local advisers are probably right as to the necessity for
summer-fallowing in order to conserve moisture from a previous year's
rainfall and to get the land otherwise into good condition. There might
be such a generous rainfall that an excellent crop might come without
summer-fallowing, and the results will depend upon the rainfall. If it
should be small in amount, you might not recover your seed. By the same
sign you might not get much growth on your fruit trees, but you could
help them by constant cultivation and by using the water-wagon if the
season should be very dry.
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