FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT. 57 



elusion as Prof. Smitli who said at a farmers* institute, "why monkey 

 with cow i)eas and soy beans in this northern climate when iield peas 

 are so much more satisfactory." ^Yhen [ coniimenced my work as 

 described, it was no trouble to keep down grass and weeds, they would 

 hardly orow at all. but sowing grain crops and legumes so many years 

 whidi helped the grass and weeds to grow without any hindrance, and 

 the gradual building up of the quality of the soil, together with my 

 absence from the orchard as before mentioned, earning my living for 

 the entire year during the late summer and autumn months has re- 

 sulted in establishing a heavy sod under the low headed trees, which 

 it seems impossible to control without great labor, as during the rainy 

 fall months the grass was not touched, and therefore took possession, 

 and this was greatly helped by the stable manure and other fertilizer 

 placed around the trees at the beginning of the season. 



I have always used commercial fertilizers but of late years have used 

 high grade phosphate and muriate of potash, purchased through the 

 State Horticultural Society, sowing each kind separately and at ditferent 

 times broadcast over the entire surface of the part of orchard T wish to 

 fertilize and harrowing in each kind separately. T sow the fertilizer 

 from the rear of a wagon, sowing with both hands a strip 20 feet wide 

 as fast as the team can walk. I seldom buy nitrogen as I grow that in 

 the legumes, but sometimes use nitrate of soda to give unthrifty or 

 newly set trees a boost. 



The plowing under of the whole of a matuied crop of rye and vetch is 

 not an ideal way of seeding, it jnits seed in too thick to raise good 

 seed to harvest but it furnishes the soil with an immense amount of 

 humus and also much fertilizer that is stored up during the growing 

 season in the roots of the vetch. I feel that in rye and vetch T have an 

 ideal crop for the orchard, free from every objection that T have pre- 

 sented against the other crops I have ])lowe(l under in past years. The 

 vetch climbs up on the rye and thus is not scalded by the hot sand, it 

 matures in one season, it furnishes the most humus of anything I have 

 tried, both rye and vetch are hardy as an oak, and it can be plowed 

 under after the rush of cultivating and cherry ])icking is done. The 

 vetch matures about ten days earlier than the rye but that is no great 

 objection; it does delay the i)lowing that much if it is desired to plow 

 under both grains ri])e enough to seed theujselves. but this can be man- 

 aged by sowing half a bushel of new rye seed, costing about 35 cents per 

 acre, and plow the standing crop as soon as the vetch is ripe. 



This year as already mentioned I cut two acres of rye and vetch for 

 seed. The vetch, being very ripe shelled some in handling it so that 

 there was a partial seeding on that 2 acres of vetch but no rye. 



Most of this 15 acres of rye and vetch was plowed under the first 

 half of September inches deej), yet enough of it came up through that 

 inches of soil to make a heavy seeding. 



I was warned by som)e of my neighbors that such late plowing with 

 no previous cultivation of the orchard during the season up to September 

 1, was dangerous, that it would result in causing new growth on the 

 trees, and that the new growth thus made would winter kill; jierhaps 

 the whole tree would die. I replied that I could not afford to buy |150 

 worth of vetch seed and I was sure it would be all right to plow it 

 under ripe. There has been no new growth. The trees standing in this 



