STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Ill 



Professor Hedrick is asked to answer question No. 2. — What 

 are the best tools for orchard cultivation where trees are low- 

 headed ? 



Prof. Hedrick : Oh, I can't answer that question, Mr. Chair- 

 man. I have not paid much attention to tools. There are tools, 

 and tools, and tools, and so much depends upon the soil and 

 locality. There are as many tools as patent cereals. I know we 

 have no trouble in getting low down tools and those that spread 

 out, for our work in New York, and you must be able to get 

 them here, but I can't give you the names of them. Some of 

 the growers will be able to name them for you. 



Question : Do you use the extension tools ? 



Prof. Hedrick : We use the extension tools, and we have 

 no tools with handles. We have a special harness, and try in 

 every way possible to have a tool that can do as little injury to 

 the tree as possible. At every exhibition of our Horticultural 

 Society or State Fair you see a considerable number of these 

 tools, most of them manufactured in the middle west, it seems 

 to me. But there are plenty of them, good tools. Every orchard, 

 I should say, or every type of soil, would need a tool particularly 

 adapted to that type of soil. We have no stones in our state, 

 whatsoever. As I came through New England I saw that you 

 do have a few stones. I expect that the tools we use would 

 not be quite the tools you would want on your stonier land. 



Mr. Yeaton : In the cultivation of the orchard, in using the 

 disc harrow we used a piece of chain, about six feet long, 

 between the spreader and where the horses were attached, and 

 we found that we could drive them in a zigzag way under those 

 trees and we could get right close to the tree without doing 

 any injury whatever — go back and forth, to the right of the first 

 tree and to the left of the second, and then reverse that action 

 coming back. We got right close to the tree without going to 

 the expense of any special tool for the orchard work. We 

 simply use the tools that we use about our common farming 

 operations. That has been, with us, the most practical of any- 

 thing, using the spring tooth harrow and the disc both, in that 

 method, with the team. The question would naturally arise in 

 the mind of every man here, "Isn't that hard on the team, having 

 them hooked so far away?" We only use that going out and 

 back ; then we shorten that chain right up and put the team 



