New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 509 



the other plats is the greater moisture content of the soil in the latter 

 plats, arising from the fact that they receive the seepage from the 

 high hill on whose base they are located whereas Plat A lies on level 

 ground to which the seepage, in summer at least, does not reach. 



PLATS. 



Two orchards have been mentioned — one on low, level ground 

 in the valley, the other on the lower part of the hill-slope. Plat A, 

 as before stated, is in the valley and plats B and C on the hill-slope. 

 Both orchards were planted before the Station began experimental 

 work with Mr. Hitchings. The trees in the valley orchard were set 

 in November, 1902, the young trees being two years old. The orchard 

 was seeded with a mixture of orchard grass and clover in the spring 

 of 1903. Plat B was put out in the fall of 1894 in a timothy and 

 clover sod from which one crop of hay had been taken. Plat C was 

 planted in the fall of 1893 and also on a timothy and clover sod. 

 The plats are outlined as follows: 



Plat A. — This plat includes all of the valley orchard, consist- 

 ing of 8 rows of 34 trees each, the rows 30 feet apart and the trees 

 20 feet apart in the row. At the beginning of the experiment these 

 trees had been set two years. Diagram 1 is a plan of the orchard 

 showing the varieties, row numbers, and division of the orchard 

 into sod and tilled sections. The area of each section as computed 

 from the distance apart of trees is 1.87 acres. 



The soil in Plat A is undoubtedly Miami loam. It is a dark brown, 

 clay loam of alluvial origin of which the surface soil varies from 8 

 to 14 inches and is comparatively free from gravel and stone. The 

 subsoil is at least several feet in depth and is a brownish-yellow 

 silt to clay loam. The surface soil contains a small proportion of 

 sand but not enough to prevent crusting over after rains so that it 

 is rather difficult of cultivation — a somewhat tenacious clay. 



Plat B. — Plat B is in the lower part of the hillside orchard. The 

 rows are 33 feet apart and the trees 32 feet apart in the row, making 

 .95 acre in each section, one in tillage „and one in sod. Diagram 2 

 shows the varieties, row numbers and cultural divisions. The trees 

 in B were nine years old when the experiment began. Unfortu- 

 nately two trees died in the early life of the orchard and their 

 places were given to other varieties. Thus, tree 12 in row 2 is 

 Pound Sweet and tree 5 in row 6 is Yellow Bell flower, both varieties 



