172 State Horticultural Society. 



that — that simply came tinder my observation and I saw all the parti- 

 culars of the work. I am satisfied that there were roots that were cut 

 in that orchard when it was first plowed under, of an inch and a half 

 in diameter, and whether it would be a good thing to advise that I 

 could not say, but that is simply an actual observation. 



President Murray. — I would like to hear from the men who sell 

 their orchards for from ten to twenty-five and thirty-five thousand 

 dollars. Judge Wellhouse, the apple king of Kansas is before us. If 

 he is willing tq let us know the secret of his wonderful success, we 

 would like to hear from him, and we would like to know whether he- 

 cuts the roots of the apple trees or not. 



Judge Wellhouse. — Mr. Chairman : I don't know that my opinioit 

 upon deep plowing is any good for I have never done any of it. When we 

 plant our trees we plant them in trenches, and when we plant them we 

 use a lister disc with four horses hitched to it, and we run that lister 

 with the sub-soil attachment to it, and that is about all we have done. 

 We have done some deep plowing on a small scale and sub-soiling, but 

 we have seen no benefits derived from it, and I have come to the con- 

 clusion that it depends almost entirely on the character of the soil. I 

 believe that is the secret of the success and failure of deep plowing 

 and the other plowing. It depends almost exclusively on the character 

 of the soil. 



Now Mr. Munger of Greenwood county, Kansas, has a 400-acre 

 orchard and has done more experimenting in sub-soiling than any man 

 that I know of in Kansas, and he says that our theorists are talking 

 all the time about sub-soiling and have been advocating its use for 

 years (and the Kansas City implement houses have sub-soil plows 

 there and have had them there for years) — he says it takes about a two- 

 horse wagon to haul all the sub-soil plows used iri Kansas today, and 

 that we have got enough results from our mode of doing, and that he 

 doesn't pay any attention to it. If you want to get thorough informa- 

 tion on sub-soiling, you will have to go to men who have benefited 

 by it. 



We make our living by growing apples. Some of you, perhaps,, 

 have heard some glowing accounts about our success. Now if we have 

 had any success it is largely owing to our failures. It is often claimed 

 that the man who has never had any failures is no good, and when a 

 failure does come it upsets him, but the prudent man that has had 

 continual failures, if he stands through those failures he will even- 

 tually succeed. 



Well, now there is ]\Ir. Alurtfeldt. He has been in the horti- 

 cultural business for a long number of years, and he is anxious to 



