l8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



found that the most practicable method for my conditions is 

 to grow the standard farm rotation of corn, wheat and grass 

 between the young trees. That does not mean, however, that 

 those crops are grown close to the trees so that the trees receive 

 no cultivation. A strip of uncropped land five feet wide is left 

 each side of the row of trees, the year the trees are set out, and 

 that is kept harrowed. The next year this strip is widened to 

 six feet, the following to seven feet, and so on. Starting with 

 corn when the trees are set. the rotation comes back to corn by 

 the time the trees are ready to take full possession of the land, 

 when they are five or six years old. For our conditions we 

 find this method more practicable than growing potatoes or any 

 other cultivated crop between the rows. Some of you may 

 think this is heresy ; no doubt it is for your conditions, but not 

 for mine. 



Tillage or sod. Fifty years ago almost all apple orchards 

 were in sod. Then came the tillage propaganda, which was de- 

 rived chiefly from California. We were told that all apple or- 

 chards should be cultivated, and some intimated that the man 

 who did not cultivate his apple orchard was either a fool or a 

 knave ; no exceptions were made. This was a swing of the 

 pendulum to the other extreme. We are coming now, I think, 

 to see that there are conditions when tillage of mature bearing 

 apple orchards may not be as desirable as some other method of 

 soil management. I suppose that eighty per cent of Virginia 

 orchards are cultivated, but there are a large number of excep- 

 tions. One of these is shown here — a profitable young orchard 

 of York Imperial, on land so rocky that it would try the patience 

 of Job to attempt to plow it. We have many profitable orchards 

 on land of that type. 



A second occasion when tillage is not practicable is shown 

 here; the land is so steep that if it were plowed and cultivated 

 it would wash to pieces in a few years. Our Southern hillsides 

 erode very quickly. On thousands of acres of the most profit- 

 able apple orchards in Virginia the scythe is the only practicable 

 implement of tillage. Perhaps red clover seed is scattered 

 every two or three years and the aim is to get as much herbage 

 to grow as possible. The grass, weeds and sprouts are cut at 

 least twice a year and left on the ground as a mulch. On strong 

 land this method produces excellent results. 



