New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 561 



is a problem yet to be solved, but helpful means in securing more 

 highly colored apples are earlier cessation of tillage, non-leguminous 

 cover-crops and the withholding of nitrogenous fertilizers. 



It is a most significant fact that apple-trees can be well-grown 

 in nurseries only under the highest tillage. A nursery in sod is 

 a sight never seen. It would be strange if the plant behaved differ- 

 ently when transplanted in an orchard. 



IN CONCLUSION. 



We have been considering grass left as mulch in an orchard — 

 bad enough ! But grass cut as hay, left to ripen, or pastured by 

 hogs, sheep or cattle is worse. Grass makes apple-trees sterile 

 and paralyzes their growth — it is the withering palsy of the apple 

 industry in New York. It is the chief cause of the decrepit, som- 

 nolent, moribund orchards to be seen from the roadsides and car 

 windows in all parts of the State. Cider mills and evaporators 

 thrive on sod-grown apples. The small, gnarly, low-grade apples 

 sent to the markets from orchards in sod have so displeased the 

 eye and palled the appetite of consumers that they are bringing 

 discredit to the apple industry of the State. The average orchard 

 in sod is a liability rather than an asset to its owner. Apple-growing 

 is going out of fashion in New York wherever sodded orchards are 

 in fashion. These a.re not loose generalities; neither are they 

 rhetorical over-statements. They are cold facts written under 

 earnest conviction of their truth from state-wide observations 

 covering several years. They can be verified by any open-eyed 

 man in a day's travel in any of the apple regions of the State. 



36 



