18 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



proving easily with the leguminous crops and chemicals that are given to 

 us. I believe in subsoiling whenever and wherever it can be practiced; 

 and yet in some soils it cannot be done; and in some gravelly, sandy subsoils, 

 it would be of no value. Bvit in building up a new orchard the one thing 

 to be sought is to get a quick jumj) on the tree the first season it is put in 

 the land. If you .don't get a good go to your tree the first season, pull it 

 up and start over again, »r don't start there. Don't hope for any later 

 growth to make up for the lost first year. Get it the first season sure. In 

 the first place, make up your mind you are going to get it, but get it sure, 

 without any question whatever. 



After all, nearly all these problems are summed up in one of Kipling's 

 poems : 



"Things never yet created things: 

 Once on a time there was a man." 



He might have added, ''or a woman." But somebody must be back of the 

 job. It is the man that has faith in the soil, faith in the trees and plants 

 he handles, faith in his God, and faith in himself, that wins out when the 

 other fellow will fail nine times out of ten. 



•DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Charles Wilde: I would like to ask how you apply the nitrate of soda? 

 On the surface? And at what times? 



Mr. .Hale: In any ploughed land I always apply a little in the spring 

 soon after planting time, on the surface; hoe it in, work it in. Only a little 

 at a time as nitrate of soda is wonderfully rich and powerful. 



Mr. Charles Wilde: How much to a tree? 



Mr. Hale: Not over a quarter of a pound at any one application to a 

 newly planted tree. You would supply this perhaps the first of May or the 

 middle of May in this latitude, and again the middle of June, and again by 

 the first of August; and if there is any go in the tree it will show it, and it 

 will show it after the first year also. I have been astonished at the results 

 of using nitrate of soda after the first year. It is supposed by many if you 

 don't get it in in a few minutes it is gone forever but this is a mistake. 



Mr. Hutchins: Do you have any difficulty with winter killing with that 

 kind of growth? 



Mr. Hale: Well, I didn't say that kind of growth — I said good A'igorous 

 growth. We had one freeze in the fall a number of j^ears ago that nipped 

 a good many fruit trees that were growing liberally, and we have had one 

 winter perhaps in the last 20 years — 34 below zero we had one year; and 

 our most vigorous young trees were injured then, although none of them 

 were killed entirely. I don't like to stimulate the growth of a tree much 

 after the first of August. Let it grow and mature then through August, 

 September and October. But there are so many more trees die from lack 

 of growth than from over growth, that you don't need to be very much 

 scared about winter killing. 



Q, I would like to ask in connection with what Mr. Hale has said about 

 jerking out of the young tree that did not get a good start, if he pulls out 

 all those that get injured during the summer by the instruments of cultiva- 

 tion? If they get a bad scar on one side, do you take that out and replant 

 it next 3"ear, after the first year's growth? 



Mr. Hale: I want to assume that instruments of cultivation are not 



