120 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE'.- 



1, your trees cease to grow about that time, and then along later iii the Eeason 

 when the wet weather comes on, they begin a second growth which is very liable 

 to Avinter kill. But if yon keep the trees growing right along the wood matures 

 and will go through the Avinter all right. 



Mr. Sailor. — T have been in Mr. Dyckman's orchard, and he has the best one 

 I have ever seen, and he has made it so by his system of cultivation. 



Mr. Crawford. — My experience is the same as that of Mr. Sailor. I have 

 been in many of the peach orchards on the lake shore, and I tind the best ones 

 are cultivated up to the time they commence to pick the peaches for market. 



N. W. Lewis. — I have seen late cultivation ruin large trees by continuing the 

 growth so late that the wood did not harden sufliciently to stand the severe 

 weather of two years ago. One of the largest fruit-growers in Douglas had 

 about 3,000 trees ruined in two not very severe seasons by late cultivation. My 

 experience has been this : Two years ago I had a young orchard which I culti- 

 vated up to July 1st, and then sowed it to buckwheat, which I allowed to remain 

 on the ground. An orchard of iive-year-old trees which I cultivated later in 

 the season received much greater injury from the cold weather than did the 

 young orchard. I think Mr. Loomis' theory is partially correct in regard to the 

 heading-in process. It seems to me that iive pounds of fruit on the end of a 

 limb would be a greater burden than ten pounds of fruit nearer the body of the 

 tree. By sowing buckwheat as I have practiced for the past two years tlie 

 ground is protected and the straw becomes manure for the next season's growth. 



Mr. Dyckman. — How much lov/er was the orchard which was killed than the 

 other one? 



Mr. Lewis. — Probably ten feet. On the most exposed ground the soil blew 

 off and the trees were killed at the roots. Some of tliese trees blossomed last 

 spring, and I thought they had come through all right and would have a con- 

 siderable many peaches, but after a while they withered and died. They were 

 on a dry, sandy soil. AVherc the roots of the trees were 25 feet lower the tops 

 were badly injured, but I cut them back and they are now in nice condition. 



Mr. Crawford. — In the eastern part of the State, just on the border of 

 Macomb county, near the Oakland county line, is a rise of land that stands up 

 prominently, above all the country around. It is more exposed to the blasts of 

 winter than any land in that portion of the State, and yet on that very tract of 

 ground stands ii peach orchard which ha^ been there for the past 25 or 30 years, 

 has borne very regularly, and this last summer there was n fair crop of peaches. 



Mr. Dyckman. —Where all circumstances are equal the high ground is most 

 favorable ; but trees are often killed on high ground where those on lower 

 ground escape, 



Mr. Cumming. — There is something in what Mr. Dyckman says about trees 

 dying out on the high elevations under certain circumstances. I have observed 

 iu my own and neighbors' orchards, that the trees on the highest and dryest 

 portions of the orchard were killed. The way I account for this is that the dry 

 ground is more severely affected by the frost than where the ground is moist. 



S. E. Lewis. — My idea is that the elevations are always the safest. In my 

 own experience, I have noticed that where trees were killed on the ridges it was 

 mostly because their roots were exposed. On this light, sandy soil the wind 

 blows"^ the soil away from the roots, leaving them exposed. In regard to the 

 shortening-in process : When I first came here it had many advocates, but of 

 late there are not many to be found in our vicinity. I am inclined to think that 

 when the trees are yoimg they can be shortened in a little with benefit. 



