62 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Ans. Because it is cheaper. The winter vetch is nine or ten 

 dollars a bushel. 



Ques. What do you use for a plow ? 



Ans. The two furrow walking plow. . 



Ques. Do the roots of the vetch get into the soil and live 

 over? 



Ans. No, it never bothers us. I notice the vetches that grow 

 in our orchards are just covered with the nodules. If you pull 

 up a plant when it is growing you will notice these little white 

 nodules. 



Ques. Do you plow it under in the fall? 



Ans. Yes ; we plow it under about the 20th of October, as 

 soon as the apples are picked. 



Ques. Where do you buy the vetch seed ? 



Ans. It comes from England. The cooperative companies 

 buy it by the hundred bushels. You can add a little buckwheat 

 to the vetches. 



In regard to fertilizers, do not go out and buy commercial 

 fertilizers and throw away the fertilizer that might be made on 

 the farm. Any man running a dairy ought to run an orchard in 

 connection with the dair>\ If he has a barn cellar he can keep 

 pigs there and he can make fertilizers for his orchard. I knew 

 a man who grew 4500 barrels of apples and used nothing but 

 barnyard manure and a little potash. You can grow fruit in 

 this way if you manage it right. An excess of barnyard manure 

 would give you luxuriant growth and then of course your trees 

 must be kept trimmed out ; and you might get some green fruit, 

 but as a rule in our vallev the trouble is want of fertilizer rather 

 than too much. 



Ques. How many loads of manure would you use to the 

 acre? 



Ans. About ten loads of a ton each. 



Ques. In setting your trees, do you put them square or tri- 

 angular ? 



Ans. I put them out at right angles. I have one orchard 

 with fillers but I do not like that way, and we have lots of land. 



Ques. You plow in the fall and leave it in the furrow until 

 spring ? 



Ans. Yes ; where we have such a lot of orchard, we will have 

 land that we cannot get onto until late. We have never seen 



