STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 215 



Mr. Meehan — That is exactly in accordance with the principles I have 

 advocated to-night. If the water will drain away it is an excellent 

 plan. I thought he had simply reference to raising it in the summer 

 and depressing it in the winter. 



Dr. Hull — I have been very highly entertained by this subject of 

 drying out as a killing process, especially in our evergreen trees. I 

 would have it borne in mind that this is no test of hardiness in the 

 trees. Now out of about 80 varieties tested in Illinois, nearly every 

 foreign variety has gone by the board, simply by this drying out process, 

 as it is well understood that the leaves of evergreen trees are the recep- 

 tacles of plant food. Now the conditions here are such that our winters 

 dr}^ up the foliage on our evergreens, not by hard freezing, but by 

 drj'ing. I hope that will be recollected, and that persons will not 

 consider that because it was taken from an altitude where the temper- 

 ature was many degrees below zero, it would necessarily make them 

 hardy. 



Mr. Pierson — What is your opinion, Mr. Meehan, of tile draining? 



Mr. Meehan — I would not put an orchard where it required tile 

 draining. I never found any profit from tile draining in fruit orchards. 



Mr. Earle — I would like to make a statement as to this ridging up. 

 I have found that plowing up to trees — and that is what, I take it, this 

 means — unmistakably furnishes the conditions of this root fungus 

 growth. In all soils that furnish the conditions of decaying wood — 

 which I think is the main cause of fungus — I think it will be found 

 fatal to the trees to do this. I would like to say this too, that we have 

 a good many facts in our neighborhood to show that the seeding the 

 ground about trees by clover — and I presume that grass is the same — 

 has restoi'ed the health of trees in regard to leaf-blight. I instance the 

 Louise Bonne de Jersey in particular. This past year, and the year 

 before, the leaves were well held on the tree, and maintained a fair 

 color, and the fruit was of very fair quality, the clover having been 

 sown two years ago last spring. I know some others that have sown 

 clover on their land for the last six or eight years, and the trees have 

 regularly held their leaves and matured fruit of excellent quality. It 



