SUMMER MEETING. 85 



is offered with a good deal of hesitation ; but when the land is put in 

 <;lover it cannot be plowed every year, «ind unless the land is plowed 

 -every year the tree growth is retarded. Many also advocate plowing 

 in the spring and seeding or planting the cow-pea. It is considered 

 that the legumes have a high value as fertilizers. Even when clover is 

 «own, the question of expense in sowing and cultivation comes in, and 

 then the question again arises as to whether the weeds, which nature 

 has furnished to procure nitrogen and phosphoric acid from the air 

 without other cost than plowing and harrowing, are not more valuable 

 and a cheaper source of fertilization than any seeding down of other 

 crops. If the ground is too rich, so that the wood growth is excessive, 

 there is no doubt that seeding down with clover for one or two years 

 of the time would be the proper treatment, and turning in the hogs, 

 •when they would eat the defective apples as they fall from the trees; 

 but for our ordinary hill-land, which is not too rich, I am satisfied, 

 then, if weeds are plowed at intervals, when they have reached the 

 height of six or eight inches, we will obtain all the nitrogen and 

 phosphoric acid needed to be added to the laud. If potash is needed, 

 wood-ashes are the cheapest form in which it can be obtained, and 

 ■cannot be too freely supplied to orchard land. 



As to the pruning of trees, I doubt if any pruning is necessary, 

 ■except to cut out the cross-branches to let light through to the body of 

 the tree, to give higher color to the fruit, and also to keep the tree 

 from becoming forked, and in consequence free from liability to split 

 down by winds. Trees should be examined in June and September 

 for borers, and while one may talk of tree-washes, I am satisfied that 

 a careful inspection of each tree witTi a wire and jack-knife is the 

 •only proper protection against borers. There seems to be the unani- 

 mous opinion amongst all experimenters that the spraying of the fruit 

 while the apples are about the size of peas, and while the flower end 

 of the apple is still pointing upward, with arsenical solution, is the best 

 protection against codlin moth ; and almost any form of disease of the 

 leaf is successfully treated by spraying two or three times each sum- 

 mer with Bordeaux mixture. Beyond these two forms of spraying 

 there seems to be no further attention required to apple trees. In 

 summarizing, I would say : 



First — Subsoil plowing before planting. 



Second — No pruning of trees except to obviate forkedness. 



Third — Planting of thrifty two-year-old trees. 



Fourth — Keeping in corn for five years, diminishing the number of 

 rows to three or four between the trees as the trees increase in size. 



