54 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



When it is remembered that an apple orchard is a crop that 

 takes many years to mature, it is evident that it will pay to 

 have the soil in first-class condition, well fertilized and in good 

 tilth. The young orchard is kept cultivated, using some such 

 other crop to go with it as corn, not potatoes, because the culti- 

 vation should cease by the first or middle of August that the 

 wood may be encouraged to ripen and be thus made more 

 resistant to freezing. 



A cover crop should be used each winter to prevent the loss 

 of soil fertility. Some legume would be better if the climate 

 will permit. Possibly crimson clover, sown in August, will 

 withstand the winter and will store up much plant food, deriv- 

 ing its nitrogen from the air, as well as pre.venting the loss 

 which would otherwise take place through the evaporation of 

 water from the surface of the crusted, bare land. Remember 

 it is not water alone which is moved to the surface as • the 

 exposed soil is dried out by sun and wind. The water coming 

 up from the depth of the soil bears with it plant food in solution. 

 This plant food is left on the very surface of the ground as the 

 water evaporates. Imagine, then, what happens on one of your 

 steep side hills when one of those sudden September thunder 

 storms comes after a period of drought. This plant food so left 

 upon the surface during the drought is washed away and the 

 soil is impoverished. It seems to me that this is the chief value 

 of a cover crop in an orchard, this prevention of the loss of 

 plant food. 



Your Experiment Station has performed a series of experi- 

 ments on this very question of cover crops. I assume that you 

 are acquainted with the matter. 



As soon as the orchard begins to grow it must be trimmed. 

 The pruning adopted in Michigan would not suit Maine con- 

 ditions. Here the tree should be headed low and the limbs kept 

 short. Winds are high, the seasons comparatively short and 

 all conditions make for the relatively small and dense tree as 

 against the more upstanding and spreading top. Of course the 

 top must be left sufficiently open to admit the too infrequent 

 sun. 



Spraying must be attended to. Against the scab you must 

 spray here as we do in Michigan with copper sulphate before the 



