STATE POMOIvOGICAL SOCIETY. 95 



consecutive years ; the third those which were in sod more often 

 than they were tilled ; and the fourth which were in sod for 

 five years or more previous to their examination — in direct 

 contra-distinction to the first one. The four year average of 

 those which were tilled for five years or more, was 266 bushels 

 per acre, for those tilled most of the time 229, for those in sod 

 most of the time 202, and for those in sod five years or more 

 150. Now you may say at once and properly, those orchards 

 which were in sod were probably otherwise neglected. That is 

 so, because the best practices of pruning and spraying and 

 feeding go together. In order to eliminate that factor of error, 

 we threw out all those orchards which were notably neglected, 

 and included those orchards in which the sod was regarded by 

 the owner as a legitimate and proper way of tilling. He cared 

 for them well otherwise. These we put into a group by them- 

 selves. We have these figures from this group : 270 for those 

 tilled, 247 for those tilled most of the time, 209 for those in sod 

 most of the time, and 197 for the sod orchards. You see 

 throwing out the very worst of these we raise this 150 to 197 

 bushels per acre, but the difference between 197 and 270 bushels 

 per acre is about enough to account for a good dividend in an 

 orchard. These figures are deduced from an examination 

 of twelve hundred acres, so it is a conclusive experiment. 



This work of making orchard surveys has been going on for 

 four or five years, as you will see by the tables, and we are 

 getting a body of information on other factors. Here I am able 

 to compare two of the leading fruit-growing counties in the 

 Lake Ontario district — Niagara and Orleans. It may happen 

 that the yield may be smaller in one county than in another. 

 That is to be explained by the character of the fruit yield for 

 the particular year or period of years when the census was 

 made. The yield, or lack of yield, for one year you see would 

 disturb the figures very considerably ; but the main lesson holds 

 that the tilled orchards give the highest yields in Niagara 

 County, 280 bushels with 254, 239, 209, etc., for other types of 

 cultivation. In Orleans you see the yield was higher in that 

 series of years, 327 for tilled and 274, 225, 222, 204, and 176 

 bushels for other types of management. The income drops 

 down from $120 for the best tilled orchards to $75 for the sod 

 orchards in Niagara Comity; in Orleans from $182 to $87. 



