New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 513 



1909. Plats plowed April 27-28; A cultivated eleven times and trees hoed twice; 

 B and C cultivated ten times; cover-crop of crimson clover sown August 23. 



1910. Plats plowed April 24-26 and B cross-plowed May 30; A cultivated eleven 

 times; and B and C seven times; cover-crop of wheat sown in A September 15. 



19 11. Plats plowed April 24; A cultivated twelve times and B and C eight times; 

 trees in B hoed about once; no cover-crops this year. 



1912. Plats plowed May 2 and 3; A and B cultivated eight times and C seven; 

 cover-crops of wheat sown September 12. 



1913. Plats plowed April 23 and 24; all plats cultivated five times. 



The cultivation between rows one way was at all times most 

 thorough. Many fruit-growers will say that the expense of cultiva- 

 tion, as shown by the number of times it was done and by the financial 

 statement in Table IV, was much above that of the average tilled 

 orchard. Strips of sod from ten to twelve feet wide were left in 

 the tree rows in all of the plats. Mr. Hitchings maintained that 

 cultivating could not be done between trees in the row without 

 danger to the trees and that the roots were out beyond the sod strips 

 at this time. Plates XLIV, XLV, XLVI, show the character of the 

 cultivation. 



DISASTERS. 



Cherished projects seem doomed most often to disaster. Plat 

 A in the Hitchings orchard is one of these. As the largest of the 

 plats and because lay of land, soil, varieties, and, in fact, all con- 

 ditions were most favorable at the beginning of the experiment, 

 this plat was given the most watchful care. " But who can turn the 

 stream of destiny?" Excessive cold in the winter of 1903-04, the 

 first year of the experiment, killed a number of young trees in Plat 

 A outright, so weakened several others that they died later, and 

 unquestionably checked the growth of all. As the trees died their 

 places were filled but these replantings could not be used for the 

 tests under way. Out of the 272 trees in this plat, 52 were sooner 

 or later discarded because of injury the first winter. 



Seemingly through some malevolent influence, but probably because 

 of unsuitability of valley land to fruit-growing in this region, the 

 trees in Plat A show a strong aversion to bearing apples. Ten seasons 

 passed without a crop of apples — only scattered specimens. The 

 trees began their eleventh summer white with bloom and all seemed 

 favorable for at least one test crop during the tenure of our experi- 

 ment. But in the end, as at the beginning of the test, disaster came 

 in a night and through the same agency — cold. The freeze in 

 blossoming time, 1913, played havoc with the setting fruit and from 

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