516 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



Summarizing the figures, we find that Alexanders growing in sod 

 produced an average of 1.84 bushels per tree during the ten years, 

 under tillage 1.33 bushels. Fameuse in sod bore an average of 6.1 

 bushels per tree, under tillage 4.5 per tree per year. Northern 

 Spy in sod bore 2.7 bushels, under tillage 2.5 bushels per year. 

 Wealthy in sod produced 5.1 bushels per year, under tillage 4.5 

 bushels. Averaging the figures for four varieties we find that the 

 trees in sod, ten years set at the beginning and twenty at the end 

 of the experiment, bore an average of a little less than four bushels 

 per tree, while those in tillage bore a little more than three bushels 

 per tree. To be exact, the difference between sod and tilled plats 

 was four-fifths of a bushel per tree per year in favor of the sod mulch. 



Taking, therefore, the difference in total yield of fruit between 

 the two plats as the measure of value of the two treatments, the 

 sod-mulch method is shown to be somewhat the better way of 

 handling apple trees under the conditions prevailing in the Hitchings 

 orchard. 



NUMBER AND SIZE OF APPLES. 



Year in and year out there was little difference in size between 

 the apples in the two sections. In 1904 and 1905 counts were made 

 of equal weights of varieties from the several sections, the results 

 showing in 1904 a slight increase in size for the apples from the 

 tilled sections. In 1905 a similar count showed the fruits from the 

 sod plats to be a little the larger. In neither year were the differ- 

 ences beyond the range of accidental variation. In no season was 

 it possible to determine, with the eye, differences in size in apples 

 from tilled and sodded trees. Apples attain more than average size 

 in the Hitchings orchards and probably less of these ten crops than 

 in most orchards went into seconds and culls because of small size. 



Size is worth considering, in these experiments, only as it has a 

 bearing upon marketable quantity. The value of the whole crop 

 was affected little, or not at all, by size. But in studying the table 

 showing the amounts of fruit for the different years the question 

 naturally arises: Is the increased quantity in any year or for any 

 variety due to more apples or are the apples larger? We have no 

 data to submit to settle this question but it was very apparent, in 

 the years when a variety in one section gave a greater quantity of fruit 

 than the same variety in the other section, that it was chiefly because 

 of a greater number of fruits. An examination of Table I shows 



