New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 



479 



sticky, making a suitable place for the spores of various rot fungi 

 so that decay may set in. In practice it is often found necessary 

 to prune from the time leaves drop until they are well started in 

 the spring. 



CULTIVATING THE ORCHARD. 



Cultivation is generally practiced with all fruits except the apple; 

 some claim that this fruit can be grown better in sod; in which 

 case the grass may be cut as a mulch or it may be kept down by 

 sheep, pigs or cattle. The various modifications of the sod method of 

 managing orchards have come to the fore because of the performance 

 of a few individual orchards in the State. But these orchards are 

 the exception and not the rule. No one knows whether they would 

 not have done better under tillage than under sod; for results have 

 not been given the public which show comparative data from the 

 two methods in any of the orchards. 



The New York Agricultural Experiment Station has two experi- 

 ments to test methods of orchard management. The following 

 table shows the outcome of one of those experiments at the end of 

 five years: 



Expense and Income from a Sod-Mulched and a Tilled Orchard. 



Allowing 27.2 trees to the acre, these figures show that the average 

 expense of production was $53.75 an acre annually under the sod- 

 mulch system and $76.06 under tillage, an advantage for the sod- 

 mulch of $22.31 an acre; but the net income from an acre in sod 

 was $71.52 and from an acre in tillage $110.43, an advantage for 

 tillage of $38.91. That is, every dollar of the additional expendi- 

 ture ($22.31) made necessary by adopting the tillage method was 

 not only returned but brought an extra $1.74 of profits with it. 



IS IT NECESSARY TO FERTILIZE AN ORCHARD? 



Is it necessary to fertilize an apple orchard? In the average 

 western New York tilled apple orchard, if it be well drained, well 



