112 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



haps in older and more mature orchards, cover crops may be 

 expected to give better results. 



Other matters, such as the relation of cultural methods to 

 fertilizer response or utilization, the influence of fertilization in 

 reducing the differences between the various cultural methods, 

 the relative value of manure and of our commercial fertihzer 

 in connection with the different treatments, and something of 

 the relation between soil type and the response to all these 

 treatments, might also be considered here if space permitted. 

 They can be determined fairly well by examining the tables 

 themselves, however, and some of them will be referred to 

 briefly in connection with certain results that appear later. 



RESULTS FROM MATURE ORCHARDS. 



One of the following orchards can hardly be considered ma- 

 ture, since it is now only lo years of age, but it is considered in 

 Table IX along with the 24-year-old trees of Experiment 338 

 because the experiments are of the same type and they thus 

 admit of briefer treatment. These two experiments, 336 and 

 338, are what we have called "combination experiments" be- 

 cause they involve two distinct series of questions, — one on 

 fertilizers and the other on cultural methods. Only the latter 

 series is considered in Table IX, and the treatments correspond 

 with Nos. IV, VII and X of the general plan shown in Figure i. 

 No fertilization has been used on the present plats except once 

 (in 1911), when a commercial fertilizer analyzing about 6-10-6 

 was applied uniformly over all the treatments at the rate of 

 about 600 pounds per acre. The results from these two experi- 

 ments on the four characters of yield, growth, size and color, 

 are as follows : 



