96 



AGRICULTURE OF MAINE, 



GENERAL PLAN OF THE EXPERIMENTS. 



The general plan of our cultural-method experiments is 

 shown in Figure i. Its chief purpose is to determine what com- 

 binations of culture and fertilization give the best results under 

 the different conditions involved, and eventually to determine 

 why the various results are obtained. The plan is followed in 

 full in the first three experiments of Table I, with only minor 

 deviations in such matters as number of trees and relative posi- 

 tions of the plats. In the other experiments, for various rea- 

 sons, certain of the treatments have been omitted, and in the 

 young orchards of Experiments 331 and :^2)7> plats involving 

 intercrops have been added. In Experiment 333, the entire 

 attention is given to a comparison of cover crops, one of which 

 is a permanent cover and hence has received tillage only at the 

 beginning of the experiment. The essential features of these 

 modifications can be seen in the treatments listed for the differ- 

 ent experiments in the tables that follow. 



Figure 1. Plan of the Pennsylvania Orchard Experiments on Cultural Methods, Cover 

 Crops and Manures. 



As indicated in Figure i and Table I, our complete experi- 

 ment on cultural methods compares the four principal methods 

 of managing orchard soils and it is duplicated, wholly or in part, 

 in several localities on a wide range of soils. Each method 

 occurs without fertilization and also with it in two forms, both 

 applied annually. The stable manure is added at the rate of 

 12 tons per acre, although 8 tons annually is probably ample, 

 and this amount has given excellent results on other portions of 

 some of the orchards in which our experiments are located. 

 The commercial fertilizer carries all three of the elements 

 usually considered important, at the rates of 30 pounds of actual 



