No. 1. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 49d 



an orchard: tillage, spraying, priming and fertilizing. Every one 

 of them is important. You cannot afford to neglect any one without 

 affecting the results. I Avill only consider tillage and spraying. I 

 don't want you to think, however, that the other two factors which 



t,' 7 7 



I am not going to present to you are of less importance. 



You will say that those differences are not due to the factor of 

 tillage alone. I really don't think they are, because the man who 

 tills well will also spray well, prune well, and fertilize more. We 

 have another table including just well cared for orchards. This 

 chart includes only the orchards which are well pruned, which are 

 well fertilized, well sprayed and which differ only in the method of 

 tillage. 



Let us stop just a minute to look at them. In Orleans county 

 the orchards, which are tilled ten years or more, are giving 8G per 

 cent, better yield than the sod orchards. You often hear the fruit 

 gi^ower express the opinion that an apple grown on sod is better 

 colored. You hear buyers say that they prefer apples grown on 

 sod. Let us see exactly what the buyers for the last five years have 

 done in spite of what their opinion may be. The average price per 

 bushel for the tilled apples is 48 cents, for the sod 43 cents, a dif- 

 fcifrence of 5 cents. In spite of the fact that the buyers say that 

 they prefer the apples on sod, they really have been paying fifteen 

 or twenty cents more per barrel for those under tillage. 



Don't thisik from v.hat I have said or from what the figures show 

 that I would advise that every orchard ought to be tilled. There 

 are conditions where tillage might not be advisable. Again the land 

 might be so steep that you cannot till it, or the nature of the sod 

 might be such that tillage might not be best. I will say this, however, 

 that four-fifths of the orchards now in sod would give better net 

 returns were they tilled. Here is a table showing results from pastur- 

 ing different kinds of animals in orchards : 



METHOD OF SOD TREATMENT. 



(3 years average per acre.) 



Pastured with. 



d 



?. 



O 



Hogs 



Sheep 129 308 216 177 



Cattle. 



Not pastured, 



Bus. 

 ISO 



115 

 136 



Let US see tli' results of the table. In the first place it shows 

 that cattle are worse than nothing. Don't put cnttle in the orchard. 

 The reason for that is evident. They will browse on the lower 

 branches, break the bark. Better let them out on the roadside and 

 have a quarrel with your neighbor than to pasture them in the 

 orchard. Sheep in most cases give better resuUs than not pastured 

 at all and the reasons here are evident. Sheep keep the grass eaten 

 closs to the ground and hence prevent the loss of moisture. The 

 manure dropped in the orchard, adds considerably to the fertility. 

 The hog is giving the best results in our state. He is better than 

 machinery and I think the results for that are evident. The same as 



