64 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



trees, the variety we are growing, and get the results, we are 

 really after and which are not a great way apart. I have 

 seen it demonstrated, over and over again, that what will apply 

 in one town will not apply in the next, and that soil conditions 

 and moisture conditions on the same farm, or in the same neigh- 

 borhood, do not compare at all, therefore it is an individual 

 problem. I wouldn't go anywhere in the state or out of the 

 state and attempt to tell the growers in those different localities 

 how they should fertilize their orchard. But I think we can 

 discuss effects of fertilization, and the reasons why we should 

 fertilize, for fertilization is necessary. 



When are we to fertilize ? With what are we going to ferti- 

 lize? What are the elements of plant food we are to use and 

 what effect are those elements going to have on the growth 

 and development of the tree and the maturity of both the tree 

 and the fruit? Now there is the thing in a nutshell, and by 

 overdoing, carrying to excess one or two of these factors, we 

 may have defeated the whole proposition that we are working 

 for. This has been done, over and over again, and probably 

 will continue to be done, until people stop and consider the 

 effects of things, and not say, "I am going to do this this year." 

 For instance, some men will give an orchard a heavy coat of 

 barn dressing, and the next year will say, "Well, I fertilized 

 it pretty good ; this year I will give it some basic slag, and if 

 that does not respond, if it does not look just to suit me, I will 

 use a coat of lime. I believe it wants lime," or something like 

 that, and so goes on from one thing to another, and the trees 

 are growing first, all to wood, and then to fruit, and there is 

 no mature fruit produced on the trees. Now there must be a 

 pretty close relationship between maturing fruit, and fertiliza- 

 tion and cultivation. It may be of interest, perhaps, in this 

 connection, to sidestep the subject just a little. The people who 

 have come to us for carloads of apples and trainloads of apples 

 in the past four or five years have wanted and always demanded 

 mature fruit and the trade that those people supply with fruit, 

 demand mature fruit. And I think, commercially, in this state 

 the fruit grower is certainly in the wrong who does not try to 

 grow mature fruit and see to it that when it comes fall he has 

 mature fruit to offer. Mature fruit will be fairly well colored, 

 at least ; it may be higTily colored. Now to get back to the real 



