42 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



number of our growers — was allowed to grow to tind out what 

 effect it would have in drying out the soil. A great number of 

 our growers follow this practice, letting their clover grow in 

 the spring time and run along until the latter part of May and 

 June and then plough, which is a very bad practice. We found 

 that whenever clover was growing the middle of July there was 

 only II per cent of moisture. The effect of this, then, has been 

 that the fruit growers have avoided the spring clover crop in their 

 orchards — not allowing it to grow in the spring time — and have 

 come back to the system of cultivating, working up their ground 

 early, and then have followed with their clover or vetch cover 

 crops so as to withdraw, if necessary, the moisture towards the 

 latter part of the season. The date to sow these cover crops has 

 been w^orked out to a greater or less extent. For instance, crim- 

 son clover sown on the 15th of June, compared wnth that sown 

 on the 20th of July, shows that the soil moisture content went 

 down to 9.73 per cent against 15.50 per cent where sown later, 

 indicating that it was possible for the fruit grower to sow his 

 cover crops too early ; also indicating that if the fruit grower 

 wished, he could, by the manipulation of his crops, dry out his 

 soil at certain periods and in that way check his tree if he thought 

 it desirable to do so, hence possibly get a better color of fruit, 

 as we sometimes think does obtain if a certain check is given to 

 the tree at a certain time toward the latter part of the season. 



I Avill not dwell on these experiments any longer, except to 

 point out this, — that in work of this kind you have something 

 definite and accurate that assists the grower, and something that 

 he must have in order to follow out what we consider up-to-date 

 practices. It is no use for me to tell the farmer that an oat crop 

 will take so many pounds of water from the soil in a certain 

 period, or that the crop will be lessened by the growing of a 

 certain grain crop or grass crop in the orchard. But we must 

 get at it from the standpoint of the moisture content to show 

 that the tree must have a certain quantity under certain condi- 

 tions in order to make use of the plant food that the soil does 

 contain. 



In connection with the planting of young trees we tried some 

 experiments for the purpose of finding out whether it was 

 desirable or not to use fertilizer of any kind when the young 

 trees were planted. Probably some of you growers have, when 



