I lO AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



pleted the five years' work. The others of course have com- 

 pleted the work, but we haven't any record of their orchard 

 management. 



There are some points of interest in regard to the work that 

 they have carried on. There were — as near as can be esti- 

 mated — about 7000 trees entered in the contest. Some of the 

 orchards were more than an acre, and some of the orchards 

 didn't quite come up to an acre, so perhaps 7000 trees is as near 

 an estimate of the total number as you can get. 



Now, of this number, using 7000 as a basis, about 15 per cent 

 died in the first four years. That is a large quantity, unneces- 

 sarily large. Of this 15 per cent, 5 per cent only, and that is 

 stretching it to the limit, died from what we might call unfavor- 

 able conditions, — w'inter killing largely or failure to start. Ten 

 per cent died from what is simply lack of care or lack of fore- 

 sight. Quantities of the trees died from mice, because people 

 did not protect their trees with tarred paper or wire, or some- 

 thing of that sort. 



The members of the department w^ent to these trees from 

 time to time, and offered the owners what advice they could. 

 In most cases, of course, it was not accepted, and perhaps it is 

 just as w^ell for the orchards that it was not. But the main 

 thing that we have to consider in the first contest, so far, is that 

 the people do not take the care in it that they should. The trees 

 as we found them in some of the better orchards were almost 

 perfect. You could not ask for better trees. Some of the 

 trees in one orchard calipered over four inches, and you can 

 think of some of those Wolf River apples down there and you 

 will get some idea as to how big the butts of those trees were. 

 Many trees in the contest did not caliper more than ij inches, 

 under practically as favorable conditions. 



The soil conditions as we found them in the various localities 

 were much the same. The trees were practically all planted on 

 a rather light loam ; and the slope conditions and other things 

 were a good deal the same in each case. 



The judging of the orchards was begun in August this year 

 and continued for eleven days. Last year Mr. Sweetser and 

 myself scored a number of the orchards from a score card that 

 we had made up. We wanted to eliminate as many as possible 

 of those orchards that did not have a chance, and we wrote to 



