STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65 



topic again: How are we going to fertilize? It is important 

 that we know what the brand of fertilizer is and when the bulk 

 of nitrogen in that fertilizer formula is going to be exhausted, 

 and that will tend to check up the trees. Instead of using 

 ground bone, and barnyard dressing to excess — there are time? 

 when we can use it and I have seen good results from the use 

 of barnyard dressing. I am not throwing that down as a ferti- 

 lizer, but the best results from its use I have ever seen secured 

 in my section of the state was when they applied it the last 

 day of October on top of the ground, leached fifty per cent to 

 sixty-five per cent of it down the row. The trees did not get 

 an excess of nitrogen, but just enough, and the grass the next 

 summer would take up a lot more of it, and they got just enough 

 to stimulate them to some growth, and being in the sod, they 

 matured nice fruit. That is the best result I have ever seen 

 with barnyard dressing. Applied with cultivation that we 

 talked about, if too large an amount of the dressing is applied, 

 it will throw the tree entirely out of balance and secure a tre- 

 mendous growth on the trees to the neglect of the development 

 of fruit spurs or fruit. When the tree is making too much 

 growth and there is fear of immature fruit, I believe then is 

 the time to go in and stop it as soon as you can with a cover 

 crop. Under Maine conditions the nitrogen in an orchard 

 fertilizer should be in an available form ; at least one-third of 

 the nitrogen should be in the form of nitrate of soda and the 

 balance in dried blood or tankage. When the tree has made 

 sufficient growth and is bearing fruit, then check that growth ; 

 do not hesitate to sow a cover crop under the trees, stopping 

 cultivation. You will find nearly every year those trees begin 

 to check back, and at the harvest you have mature fruit such as 

 you are not ashamed to show to an apple buyer. So the covc" 

 crop comes in there to be a factor. Why ? Because it takes up 

 the surface moisture aud some of the available nitrogen near 

 the surface. What kind of a cover crop are you going to put 

 in? That depends on your conditions — the amount of moisture. 

 If it was in drought I should want a very light one. It might 

 not be necessary to put it in quite so early if it was an extremely 

 dry season. But with plenty of moisture and the trees looking 

 right, I would not hesitate to sow a crop of oats, if I thought 

 there was danger of their going too far over toward wood, for 



