92 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



DISCUSSION. 



Q. I was interested in that point brought out about wood ashes. I have 

 'been following Mr. Hale's advice and using a good deal of wood ashes on 

 strawberries, as we have them very handy and can get them by the ton by 

 hauling a quarter of a mile and paying a small price, and I want to know 

 where to put them. But Mr. Colling wood here advises us not to use very 

 much wood ashes on strawberries because strawberries do not like the acid 

 soil. I am kind of between two fires and don't know just which to do. 



Mr. Hale : Strawberries do not like acid soil ; that is all right. The potash 

 and lime in the potash helps sweeten your soil. 



Same Member: I beg pardon. I misspoke. They like acid soil, but not 

 an alkali soil. 



Q. Mr. President, if questions are in order: Mr. Hale speaks emphati- 

 cally in regard to the advantage of the use of cover crops for the production 

 of humus. I would like to understand whether it is his idea to plough under 

 these cover crops while they are green and full of sap, or whether they should 

 be allowed to reach a certain stage of development where they will not be 

 very sappy, before they are turned under? 



Mr. Hale: I never like to turn them under in sappy condition. For 

 instance, my cow peas, which are a semi-tropical crop, I want them to grow 

 and be killed down by the frost. The dry part is all I want; the water in 

 a sap plant is no particular advantage, while turning in some of those green 

 crops tends to souring the soil. Same with clover. I do not like to wait 

 in the spring until they have grown six inches or a foot or more. The value 

 of a cover crop to me is through the summer and fall; just as early in the 

 spring as I can I turn them under. No, I don't want to turn them under 

 in a green state. 



Q. I would like to have Mr. Hale's opinion about the aphis. That is 

 the worst we have to contend with in our locality in the growing of peaches, 

 besides winter killing. 



Mr. Hale : They trouble you the first year's planting ; rfot after the trees 

 get under way? 



Q. No, the trouble is getting the trees under way, in planting near an 

 old orchard, where there has been trees planted in it before. 



Mr. Hale: By the liberal use of nitrate of soda around a young tree the 

 first season, we get it going, and its roots run away from the aphis. 



Q. What stage of the growth of the rye do you plough it under? You 

 can't wait until it is frost killed. 



Mr. Hale: In the first place, I would not grow it at all except to keep 

 the land from blowing away. I would plough it under early in the spring 

 if I was foolish enough to have sown it in the fall where I ought to have had 

 clover or vetch. 



Q. In your experience, Mr. Hale, what is the best method of distributing 

 the nitrate of soda in nursery rows? For instance, you speak of 200 or 400 

 pounds to the acre. 



Mr. Hale: No, I did not say as much as that at one time. But that 

 is too much to put on almost any crop. Fifty to one hundred pounds at 

 a time is better. If I were going to try 400 pounds to an acre of nurser}^, I 

 would put it on four different times, and probably hand sowing would be 

 the most economical way to apply it. 



Q. It would be a difficult matter to spread it thin enough. 



Mr. Hale: No, no, no. 



