82 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



they are impoverished in food reserves, and have been thrown below 

 the desired, balanced condition of good growth and abundant fruiting. 



After the conditions prevailing in alternating bearing have been 

 broken up, the problem of keeping the trees in the state of annual pro- 

 duction still remains. It has been found in Oregon and elsewhere that 

 the effects of a heavy application of nitrate of soda, or of sulfate of am- 

 monia are shown by the tree not only during the year of its application, 

 but during one or more years thereafter. The prolonged effects of a 

 single application of organic fertilizer through a period of years is also 

 well known. The fertiUzer materials, or products formed from them, 

 are carried over both in the soil, and in the trees. Naturally this means 

 that applications of fertilizers during succeeding years, after the first 

 one, must be gauged by the extent of these "carry over" or hold over 

 effects. It is perfectly possible to cause a tree to go from Class 4 to 

 Class 2 within two years by over fertihzation, and even to Class 1, by 

 over pruning. It is quite impossible, however, for anj^one to make any 

 general recommendations on the amount of pruning to be done, or the 

 amounts of fertilizers to be applied each season, without carefuU}^ noting 

 the condition of the trees, and the amount of the crop previously pro- 

 duced, or likely to be produced. This the fruit grower himself is in the 

 best position to do. 



It remains to say that length alone is not the safest guide for judging 

 the conditions of the trees. To note the diameter of the growths pro- 

 duced is quite as essential, for there are many of the longer, twiggy 

 growths, which are of very little value as future fruiting wood. But the 

 sturdier shoots do furnish a rather helpful index to growth and fruiting 

 conditions. By becoming familiar with them, by knowing the fruiting 

 habits of the varieties grown, by trying to recall the classes of growth, 

 and the probable substances to which such growth and fruiting behavior 

 are related, and then remembering the means by which these substances 

 can be increased or decreased in commercial orchard practice, the fruit 

 grower becomes his own best counselor and has a surer and safer guide 

 toward profitable fruit growing than without such information at hand. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Brooks: Would it be all right to apply Nitrogen to crop two 

 or three weeks before blossoming, and another after blossoming? 



Dr. Kraus: If you should put on one application and it should be 

 followed by a heavy rain, the material would be washed out by the rain 

 and part of it would be lost. But the great trouble is generally found 

 that the application has been made too late, and I doubt very much if j'ou 

 could get the same good results with the second application that you 

 could with the first. If you could get Nitrogen in early, when these buds 

 are just developing, you get a much greater value for the money put 

 in them. In the second application it is held over and will show in the 

 succeeding crop. This reserve is carried over inside of the tree and is 

 used in the crop the succeeding year. 



Question: How early would you advise putting on the Nitrogen? 



Dr. Kraus: Our best results have come from applying the nitrogen 

 when the fruit buds show green between the bud scales. 



Question: How long would you say it was advisable to apply one 

 fertilizer year after year? 



