FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 21 



cau never raise peaches profitably, without keeping the ground in good 

 condition, and supplying it with that whicli is taken from it by tlie 

 trees, and it is surprising what a small amount of fertility is necessary 

 to meet this demand. But nevertheless, it must be supplied if you are to 

 get the best results. We need the cover crops to keep our fertility in- 

 tact, and save it from being washed out of the soil, and there is nothing 

 like the cover crop for this purpose. It is a well known fact that in 

 years gone by if a man wanted to raise a maximum yield he would sum- 

 mer fallow. That is what we do in our peach orchards when we used 

 the cover crops. We want to use the culture system. We know that 

 wheat will grow nicely on summer fallow ground, because we liberate 

 a lot of plant food Avhich is ready for that wheat crop to take up. Now 

 what we want to do in regard to the peach orchard is to liberate the 

 plant food. Along in the fall of the year our trees do not need much 

 of that food. We want to rob the trees of it so as to ripen them. We 

 have the ideal condition there to grow a large cover crop for a number 

 of purposes. One thing we want to do in order to check the growth of 

 the tree. For this purpose, oats and barley are as good as anything. 

 Cowpeas, soy beans and Canada field i^eas are excellent. But we also 

 ■wish a winter grain crop, something that is groAvn all winter, to take 

 care of everj-thing that is soluble as much as possible, and I believe there 

 is no better growth for that purpose than sand vetch. Sand vetch has 

 been talked up very much in the southern part of the state, but I do not 

 know whether you could do as well in Mason county as farther south. 



(A voice) ''It is all right." 



I know it does very well in the southern part of the state. The object 

 of the sand vetch is to get a leguminous crop. It has been proven time 

 and again that we can grow heavier crops with sand vetch than we can 

 without. You can grow more tons to the acre and it is exactly as valu- 

 able as clover, besides saving our fertility in that way, it also adds 

 considerable nitrogen. 



Besides, we use liberal quantities of stockyard manure. Our ground 

 is good and getting better ever}' year where we have our peach trees. 

 We sow sand vetch and oats. Some claim that barley is a robber crop, 

 but this will hold the sand vetch all winter and you may know some- 

 thing of how high we value it when I say that we spent |188 for sand 

 vetch seed this year. 



In the spring before the buds start, spray with lime-sulphur and be 

 sure to get it on before the buds are out. This year the United States 

 Department of Agriculture did considerable spraying over the State, 

 and they used some summer spray on our peach orchards — self-boiled 

 lime and sulphur, eight pounds of lime, eight pounds sulphur and two 

 I)ounds of arsensate of lead. You will find directions in Bulletin No. 

 125, Department of Entomology. You should spray three times, first 

 just before the blossoms ojten. just after the blossoms fall, and then as 

 soon as the fruit is well set. The arsenate of lead is to kill the curculio. 

 Owing to the conditions of the weather there was no fungus this year and 

 so we did not have any curculio. The difference between the unsprayed 

 and sprayed did not show so very materially different results. But the 

 closer to the lake shore we got the more the fungus increased, and in 

 some places I have seen Avhere the value of the i)each crop was cut in 

 two by not being sprayed, I do not believe it is necessary to put on the 



