1722 



Report of Farmers' Institutes 



by a coating of thick lead paint to protect the cut surface from 

 evaporation and moisture. 



time to prune 



The best time to prune is late winter before the sap flows. The 

 objection to early winter pruning is that there may be injury to 

 the tissues near the wound from cold or from checking. Late 

 spring pruning results in loss of sap and the fluids run down the 

 bark and keep it wet and sticky, making a suitable place for the 

 spores or 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. 



CULTIVATION 



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 do^vn 

 by sheep, pigs or cattle. The I^ew York Agricultural Experiment 

 Station has two experiments to test sod and cultivation. The fol- 

 lowing table shows the outcome of one of these experiments at the 

 end of five years : 



EXPENSE AXD INCOME FROM A SOD-MULCHEB AND A TILLED 



ORCHARD 



Allowing 27.2 trees to the acre, these figures show that the aver- 

 age expense of production, including picking and marketing, 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; 



