REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 59 



phate or basic slag or fine ground bone for the phosphoric acid. 

 We put on about 200 pounds of muriate or sulphate of potash 

 according to the soil. A clay soil would not need as much 

 potash as a sandy soil. Then we must have nitrogen in order 

 to grow any crop. It is one of the most important fertilizers 

 we have. The cover crops are full of nitrogen if you sow the 

 right kind, and barnyard manure has a good deal of nitrogen 

 and is a fine thing for growing young trees ; they could not 

 have anything better. 



I have 25 or 30 acres of orchard that never saw barnyard 

 manure, the orchards having been grown entirely on fertilizers 

 and cover crops. I have other orchards fertilized with barnyard 

 manure and I cannot see very much difference. I could not give 

 any set rule for fertihzing orchards. In the orchards that I 

 fertilize with commercial fertilizers I sometimes vary the fer- 

 tilizer. Last year I put on 700 pounds of slag, 150 pounds of 

 muriate of potash and 700 pounds of ground fish fertilizer, — 

 this analyzing about 9 per cent of ammonia and 8 per cent of 

 nitrogen. You may think that is too much but in our valley 

 we can hardly ever over-fertilize. When a man has 40 or 50 

 acres of orchard there is not much danger of his over-fer- 

 tilizing. He looks at the money and it looks big and he does 

 not have faith enough in the results. 



Ques. About how far apart are your trees ? 



Ans. About 33 feet, and I would not plant them any closer. 

 I would rather plant 40 feet apart. I might put in a filler for a 

 little while, but in our country I have never seen a filler cut out. 



I think that you do not sow the right kind of cover crops. I 

 wonder how many men in this audience sow summer vetches in 

 their orchards, a bushel or a peck to the acre? Humus is most 

 important to the farmer. The problem of maintaining and in- 

 creasing the store of humus is the most important problem our 

 farmers are confronted with. Now what is the reason that this 

 question of humus is of such vast importance? Because the 

 humus is a great source of nitrogen. Humus is decaying vege- 

 table matter, and in decaying vegetable matter you get the same 

 constituents in the soil that it took to build the plant life up with. 

 The plants get these constituents from the soil and you are 

 returning them to the soil. Humus also contains phosphoric 

 acid and potash. Then this decaying vegetable matter improves 



