REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 63 



any ill effects from fall plowing. Our trees look well. Scien- 

 tific men may tell you not to plow an orchard in the fall, but 

 in our country the orchards are plowed in the fall altogether 

 except where the soil is very light and the man has a small 

 orchard. 



I tell you, gentlemen, there is money in growing fruit if you 

 grow it right ; but if you want to grow fruit you must grow 

 good fruit, and that is the reason I am paying particular atten- 

 tion to those two important factors. I am really astonished that 

 there are men all over this audience who have not sown cover 

 crops. I dare say you have done the cultivation very well, 

 although some people tell me there are lots of orchards here in 

 the sod. Of course we cannot grow timothy hay and a crop 

 of apples. 



Ques. Is it practicable to grow peas for a cover crop? 

 Ans. Some people do that. Peas are a leguminous crop and 

 you will get good results. 



Ques. Have you ever tried running a clover crop over one 

 year ; clipping it off', and plowing it in the next year ? 



Ans. I have grown clover in my orchard as a crop, but the 

 trees dried out very much and the leaves turned yellow. The 

 clover takes so much moisture from the soil that the trees suffer. 

 I have never struck anv method which includes cultivation bv 

 which I could let any crop grow during the summer. In our young 

 orchards we cultivate the land for the first ten years and get 

 good returns from the cultivation of that soil. Of course for 

 the first five or six years we do not get very much returns from 

 the orchard. I believe the right w^ay to grow orchards is to 

 grow them in connection with general farming. I am not so 

 sure that a certain number of men can form a syndicate and go 

 out and buy land and grow" apples, waiting for returns, and 

 make very much money ; but we are all growing more or less 

 apples. 



Ques. What kind of crops do you grow in the young or- 

 chards ? 



Ans. We follow a rotation. For instance, if we are planting 

 an orchard on an old, run-out field, we plow it up and give it 

 good cultivation, using commercial fertilizers, put in the trees 

 and perhaps the first year put in a crop of potatoes. These 

 might yield 250 bushels to the acre. I have done that on a five 



