84 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



far south as Maryland. So we decided it was mere prejudice 

 and bought all of our trees from a ^laryland firm, and got very 

 fine trees at a reasonable price, because we were ordering a 

 large quantity. Some were branched, but a good many just 

 straight whips. Prof. W. and I both like low-headed trees, and 

 we headed nearly all our trees eighteen inches from the ground. 

 That took away all the top. For that kind of heading it seemed 

 imperative to get one-year-old trees. We had a few two-year- 

 old Hubbardstons and we found we got down in two-year-old 

 wood on the butt, and the buds were weak and sprang out up 

 and down the tree wherever they were strongest. With the 

 one-year-old trees the buds are all strong enough, the top buds 

 push, and you get the tree headed where you want to. I am not 

 going to advise low-headed trees for you in Maine, because I 

 think very likely your heavy snows would make it impossible 

 to use them. But it seems to me that where it is possible, the 

 whole argument is in favor of the low-headed trees. We have 

 the San Jose scale badly, and to get the tree where it can 

 be sprayed and pruned and the harvesting done largely from the 

 ground appeals to me very strongly. As I said, we headed 

 most of our trees at eighteen inches. We headed a block of 

 peaches at six inches. That means of course that the head 

 comes out practically at the ground, and they have made the 

 finest growth of any of the trees on the place. I was talking 

 with Mr. J. H. Hale not long before we started our work, and 

 he told me that in nearly all his Georgia orchards, and very 

 largely those in Connecticut, they never even take a step-ladder 

 into the orchard. They simply have a short pole with a hook 

 on it to bend the branches down, and the whole crop is gathered 

 from the ground. 



Another problem that we attacked was the great question of 

 fertilizers, and naturally with a soil as I have suggested, with- 

 out any humus in it, and with nothing but its good natural 

 physical condition, the question of fertilizer was an important 

 one. As I said, we applied nitrate of soda and got satisfactory 

 growth for this season. We want to get at the soil and get it 

 in better condition for future seasons. We put on 300 pounds 

 of sulphate of potash per acre, not about the tree but on the 

 land, and about 800 pounds of basic slag. Phosphoric acid 



