418 BOAHD OF AOUICULTUKE. 



the time. A tree that has been cared for in this way will come into bear- 

 ing earlier than a tree tliat has been cultivated. This is the {general 

 experience in the East. I do not mean to say that orchards will talie care 

 of themselves. We have farmers in the East who have apple orchards 

 and have timothy and clover growing in them, and they cut the grass and 

 take it away and never put anything baclf. I believe a tree needs to be 

 fed. There Is not a worse mistake made in the world than for a man to 

 say It doesn't pay to take care of trees. If a tree is worth putting into 

 the ground it is worth taking care of. Some people turn in eight or 

 twelve hogs al)out the middle of June or the first of Jidy. but my experi- 

 ence is that they rub against the trees and hurt them. I think it is all 

 right to turn the hogs in, but there should be a wire net around the trees 

 to keep them from rubbing up against the young ones, and damaging them. 

 With some people and trees it is a case of "root hog, or die." There is 

 one of two things bound to be, and that is tliat you will either have very 

 poor hogs, or a very poor orchard if you turn the hogs in to take care of 

 themselves, and leave the trees to take care of themselves. 



I suppose you will be surprised to learn that I have Ben Davis apples 

 on my farm. My boys said that we were raising apples for business, and 

 that on that account we should raise some Ben Davises. I planted fifty 

 trees of Ben Davises. We plant grass on the orchards and when it is cut 

 pile it around the trees. For a cultivated orchard there is nothing better 

 than cowpeas and crimson clover. You can have a crop of cowpeas on 

 rough, stony land, and even on the hillsides. This is one of the nicest 

 things about cowpeas. Most other crops have to have the ground pre- 

 pared for them. With the cowpeas you can go in with a spring-tooth har- 

 row and go over the ground, then sow your cowpeas. and go over this 

 with a roller, and you have your crop in. They will live under hard condi- 

 tions. I do not know of anything that will make such a growth on our 

 rough, rocky hilly land better than they will. I remember the first crop I 

 ever had. I didn't even tell my wife about them, but went in the orchard 

 with the spring-tooth harrow and the roller, and had a fine crop. They 

 will grow on seemingly nothing. It reminds me of the preacher's horse. 

 The minister is a privileged character, and he had an idea that his horse 

 ought to live on faith instead of oats, and he turned him into the road to 

 get grass on the roadside. When he happened to stray into someone's 

 cornfield or garden they could not have a word to say because it was the 

 minister's horse. Some bad boys that I knew pretty well had more 

 courage than this. They made a sort of pair of shafts for the horse, 

 which extended out in front, and on this projection they put clover hay, 

 and it is said the horse walked ten miles after the clover hay. I never 

 saw anything in my life do like those cowpeas did. When August came 

 I was short of hay, and I cut the cowpeas and put part of them in the 

 barn to use as hay. I had a good second crop of thorn on the same patch, 

 too, and it was nearly as large as the first. 



