158 Appendix. 



the air, the requisites for the growth of plant and fruit are formed, and 

 sent back from the leaves to do their work. The carbonic acid gas 

 enters the leaves through very small openings or breathing places. It 

 ■comes in contact in the cells of the leaves with chlorophyll and when 

 the leaves are exposed to the direct rays of the sun a chemical process 

 takes place which results in the formation of starch, and this starch, 

 with the mineral matters brought up from the soil and separated from 

 excess of water in the leaves, build up the plant, root and top, and 

 enable it to develop and ripen its crop of fruit. 



THE MULCH METHOD OF ORCHARDING. 



There have been so many questions about "mulching" of late that we 

 print here the substance of a paper read by H. W. Collingwood before 

 the New York State Fruit Growers' Association at Fredonia, N. Y. : 



WHAT IT MEANS. 



What do I mean by mulching a young tree? I plant trees either in 

 sod or plowed ground, as is most convenient, usually in sod. I dig a 

 small hole and closely prune both roots and top of the tree, then I pack 

 the tree hard in the little hole. The sod which is dug out is put in the 

 hole upside down, and packed down hard around the roots of the tree. 

 As soon as possible after planting, a pile of coarse mulch, straw, weeds, 

 grass, forest weeds or trash is thrown close around the tree. As grass 

 or weeds which grow in that field are cut the crop is raked and piled 

 around the tree, thus having a mass of decaying vegetable matter there 

 all the time. In one peach orchard we have cut the grass and hauled 

 it out for hay, then we gathered weeds and trash of all sorts and threw 

 that around the trees. This method, however, is not what I call the 

 mulch system, as when properly carried out all the grass which grew 

 in the field should be cut and piled like a young hay stack around the 

 foot of the trees. I imagine that 75 per cent of the reported failures 

 of the mulch system, especially for young trees, have been where the 

 grass was hauled away from the orchard. I planted one orchard in 

 an uncleared field and cut brush, cedars, briars and sweet-fern bushes, 

 vdiich were piled arovind the young trees. Under these different con- 

 ditions the growth of the young trees has ranged all the way from 

 poor to excellent, depending upon the amount of mulching material we 

 had put around the trees, other treatment being equal. Where we 

 have been able to obtain sufficient mulch material the growth with us 

 has been quite equal to well-cultivated trees. At the Ohio station the 

 growth of the mulched trees was ahead of those cultivated or planted 

 in clover crops. These mulched trees also came into bearing earlier. 

 That appears to be true of our own trees. I also notice that the 



