86 STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



Mr. Willaed: We do put clover into our orchards when young, and 

 turn it under the first season, when well in bloom, but this is not to be 

 done on these light soils. 



Mr. Russell: We might as well Ihrow away the seed as to try that 

 here — we would get no catch. 



Mr. Mokrill: It is easy to get a catch by sowing wood ashes first. I 

 use mammoth clover for this purpose in preparing land for trees. 



Prof. Bailey: We have used beans as a cover, but they are two easily 

 killed by frost, and wash out of sight before winter. Peas were much bet- 

 ter, sown in July and August. Vetch proved best of all. It is killed by 

 frost, but covers the ground like a carpet and plows under easily. We are 

 now trying cow peas, and I think these would do well here. 



Prof. Taft: We have been trying spurry on light soils. Sown in July, 

 it is killed down by frost when about two feet high. Crops of corn and 

 wheat have been increased twenty-five to fifty per cent, by one plowing 

 under of this crop. It is a perfect cover for the soil in an orchard. This 

 might not be so desirable in a bearing orchard, where tramped upon in 

 gathering the fruit. I have put strips of clover between rows of trees too 

 large for the cultivation of corn, and got a nice growth and much fertility 

 from them. 



Prof. Bailey: Sown in July, these plants would become so large as to 

 endure the tramping of the harvest. Rye only elaborates what it takes 

 and returns it. 



Mr. Pratt: Who has had experience with odorless phosphate? 



Mr. WiLLARD and Prof. Bailey said they could not recommend it. 



Mr. Morrill: It is the same thing as " Thomas' slag" or basic slag. I 

 use it as a dust for insecticides, but not as a fertilizer. 



Commercial fertilizers were discussed to some length, the conclusion 

 being that all 'of them have value under certain conditions and in some 

 soils, and none should be condemned without thorough trial. 



Closing the Wednesday evening session, following Prof. Bailey, Presi- 

 dent Lyon read the following paper, which was very cordially received: 



the right of pomology to be recognized as a science. 



Science, in the strictest sense of the word, consists in a system of facts 

 or deductions susceptible of absolute demonstration, leaving nothing within 

 its legitimate sphere in uncertainty. 



Pomology, however, must climb far above its present level, and reach the 

 solution of many a difficult and perplexing problem, before it can take rank 

 with this class of sciences. Even in case of the less exact sciences, among 

 which we may enumerate botany, entomology, mycology, and perhaps geol- 

 ogy, as being in some respects akin to pomology, when taken in its broader 



