No. 7. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



239 



of the need of plant food, as one of our youngest orchards, a seven- 

 year old, is responding strongly to fertilization, while some older 

 ones have proved unresponsive. The big fact is that when such re- 

 sults as these are obtainable anywhere, it raises a strong suspicion 

 that similar benefits may be obtained in many other orchards. And 

 these results show beyond pread venture that in some orchards, 

 apple trees, like other plants, respond strongly and directly to ap- 

 plications of plant food. 



EXPERIMENTS ON CULTURAL METHODS 



Closely associated with the question of plant-food, is that of soil 

 moisture. It is undoubtedly the available moisture per individual 

 fruit that determines in a large measure whether or not the apples 

 shall attain their jjroper size; and it is largely to modify moisture 

 supply that the various cultural methods are followed. The plan 

 of our experiments comparing these methods is shown in Figure I. 



Figure I 



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