538 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



in accord, showing, one and all, that the welfare of the orchard is 

 best served by tillage. With this concurrent response of characters 

 established in the first period of the experiment, it did not seem 

 necessary to use all of the criteria in showing the effects of the two 

 treatments on the orchard during the last period. The ultimate 

 criterion of a method of management is, of course, crop performance. 

 The yield of fruit, then, has been chosen as the chief measure of 

 merit of the two methods in this report. So, too, diameter of trunk 

 is the best standard to measure tree performance and is given as 

 the chief gage of the growth and vigor of the trees. 



YIELD OF FRUIT. 



The Baldwin is usually a biennial bearer but now and then the 

 trees bear two years in succession and it is seldom that all of the trees 

 in an orchard take the same year off. In the Auchter orchard we 

 have been fortunate enough to have ten crops in succession, the 

 yields being given in Table III. In calculating the value of a crop 



Table III. — Yield of Fruit on Sod and Tillage Plats in the Auchter Orchard^ 



of apples we must, of course, know the quantities of the barrelled 

 stock and culls. These data are given in the table presented. But 

 the figures for total yield are by far the most important in comparing 

 the results of the two treatments in this orchard; for, while grading 

 assorts apples somewhat in accordance with size, yet the quantities 

 of seconds and culls are always more or less increased by fruits 



