institute: papers. 117 



respond. This is the way he makes his orchard do its best. It 

 is his opportunity. 



Two young men in another part of the town bought a run- 

 down or neglected farm a few years ago. The orchard did not 

 look very promising when they began to prune and work over 

 the trees, so long had it been neglected. No sooner was this 

 done than a flock of sheep was turned in. They came out fat 

 in the fall, after doing good service in eating up the wormy 

 apples that fell from the trees. The fruit from the orchard was 

 just fine. It seems to the young men that their orchard was 

 producing two crops — one of mutton and the other of fruit. It 

 certainly is an inexpensive way of settling a fertihzer bill — much 

 better than growing potatoes at prevailing prices. 



In another part of the county a herd of pigs was turned into 

 the orchard. They nosed around all over the orchard, lived on 

 the grass until the owner wished to get them ready to sell, when 

 a few bushels of corn were fed. They ate the drops, worms and 

 all, and more than all this they fertilized the trees until the or- 

 chard bore its largest crop of the most beautiful Maine fruit. 

 There was a handsome profit to him from the sale of the pork 

 besides a large crop of fruit. This was his way of feeding the 

 trees, and it is one of the least expensive and most effective. 

 Pork and apples make a good crop. 



Only a few days before the preparation of this paper I visited 

 a large poultry plant. The yards had been planted with apple 

 trees and they had been growing furiously all through the sea- 

 son. The trees were too young to bear, but the poultry had 

 made them grow — a little too much, for the wood had no time to 

 fully ripen up for winter. It will be strange if the trees are not 

 killed back. This suggested to me that here is nothing better 

 to make trees grow than the poultry, but they should be removed 

 from the orchard as early as August if the best results are 

 wished. However, it is a cheap and desirable way of fertilizing 

 an orchard. From our own experience we believe poultry is 

 about the best means of fertilizing an orchard where it can con- 

 veniently be used for that purpose. 



These opportunities are available for two classes of people — 

 Hrst, to those who own farms and want to get more profit from 

 them, and second, to those who do not own farms in Maine and 

 are looking for opportunities to invest their funds in a paying 



