528 Report of the Department of Horticulture. 



atively close to the root run of the trees, or, as in the case of the 

 orchards under discussion, must be fed by seepage from higher 

 ground nearby. On land that suffers from summer drouths, this 

 sod-mulch treatment will almost certainly prove less beneficial to 

 trees than tillage. 



5th. Economic conditions may decide the choice between tillage and 

 some midching treatment. — The cost of caring for a sodded orchard 

 is materially less, under this mode of mulching at least, than by 

 tillage. If, then, a man chooses to grow apples extensively rather 

 than intensively he may make larger acreage in sod counterbalance 

 greater production under tillage thereby bringing the cost of pro- 

 duction to the same level. 



THE LESSON OF THE HITCHINGS ORCHARD. 



We end as we began, by saying the Hitchings orchard is unique. 

 The chief lesson it teaches is that a man may break away from the 

 common practice, when circumstances render such practices difficult 

 or impossible, and yet attain a high degree of success. The method 

 of orcharding which takes its name from the Hitchings orchard 

 is not as valuable to the fruit-growers of New York as is the demon- 

 stration by Mr. Hitchings that new paths to success may be blazed — 

 new practices devised to meet new conditions, old obstacles over- 

 come in new ways. It is a splendid and successful example of 

 resourceful pioneering and of persistent endeavor to attain the 

 highest success. The pith and the point of the work in this orchard, 

 so different from other orchards in the State, is that fruit-growing 

 is intensely individual. The prime factor is the man. 



But from the success of Mr. Hitchings the apple-grower must 

 not be led away from the general truth, that the individual problem 

 can be solved most often by the rational application of the laws 

 of nutrition and growth which plants generally follow. Applied 

 to the problem of growing apples in New York, the general law is, 

 that the apple, like other orchard, field and garden plants, responds 

 to cultivation. 



