Il6 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



I Speak of, especially those on the sandy soil, do show some 

 results from phosphorus, as well as from nitrogen, but up to 

 date we have not found any place in the state of New York 

 where a tree responds to the application of potash. Now we 

 may find that later, but we have not found it as yet. I asked 

 Dr. Twitchell whether it would hold that because potatoes 

 respond to potash, apple trees will. I don't believe it will. For 

 this reason, the apple begins to grow early in the season and 

 continues to grow until frosts come — heavy frosts at that. The 

 potato does not have half the growing season, neither do any 

 other farm crops. The apple has five or six years, before it 

 begins bearing, to make growth and send its roots down. The 

 apple roots have a feeding surface of six, eight, ten or fifteen 

 times as much as a potato. They go way down and spread 

 way out. You have no idea, unless you have dug up the roots, 

 how far they spread out, sometimes thirty or forty feet, often 

 fifteen or twenty feet. The product from apple trees is nearly 

 all water, from eighty to ninety per cent water. The leaves go 

 back on the soil. The apple tree is a heavy drinker. The leaves 

 transpire more water in proportion than do the leaves of the 

 potato. An'd for all these reasons I am inclined to think that 

 the apple, and other fruit trees as well, need far less fertilizers, 

 providing you are cultivating the soil and using every means 

 available to set free the food in the soil than other farm crops, 

 generally. You only need to look at your stony mountain sides 

 and the tremendous trees that grow there to know that a tree 

 can get along with relatively little plant food. Now don't mis- 

 understand. Don't say that I said never to apply fertilizers to 

 an apple orchard or any other tree. I haven't said that. On 

 the contrary, I know, occasionally, trees do respond to the appli- 

 cation of fertilizers. And I am sure they must have nitrogen. 

 But I am inclined to think, in our state any way, and I am 

 speaking now for New York, more money is wasted in buying 

 fertilizers for apple orchards than is well spent. 



Mr. Gardner : Would you say then that the principal factors 

 were humus and moisture? 



Prof. Hedrick : Humus and moisture are more important 

 factors in growing apples than plant food. The plant food in 

 the average soil is there, if you only set it free. The fertilizer 

 men don't like this kind of talk, and they everlastingly go at 



