Winter Meeting. 321 



crisp, first class fruit, on and after the fifteenth of October, in this 

 latitude; fruit that matures too early will not last long through mod- 

 erately warm weather, such as we had in October this year, to reach the 

 storage houses, and we hear the cry later from commission men on Water 

 street, Chicago ajid elsewhere, that their fruit is rotting. 



It has occurred to me that old settlers planted their orchards 

 altogether in new fresh lands for the good reason that they had no 

 worn out land, therefore, their trees ^ver6 more apt to get a healthy 

 start and made longer lived trees. 



I have seen more cases of root-rot in wet, clammy, worn out land, 

 where the wind had a fair chance to shake them about when the ground 

 was wet, causing a crust to brake hard around each root when the ground 

 dried out, similar to a coat of plaster of Paris, which helped to kill the 

 tree in the poverty stricken soil. In such soils the cow pea assisted in 

 a mechanical way, as well as otherwise, to restore such soils to a normal 

 condition for tree growth. I drill the cow peas, in each orchard, after 

 the first of June, aftor I find out there will be none, or a very light 

 crop on such orchard. The peas are cultivated as long as we can get 

 through them, first with weeders, afterward with cultivators. From 

 June 15th, to July 1st, we thin the fruit if our crop is too full, by 

 taking off all small and damaged fruit; thin out all clusters to one 

 apple, and places where fruit is too thick, to five or six inches apart. 



I have seen very little damage occur to apples after July 1st, 

 unless by hail or grass-hoppers. I have found it best to fertilize the 

 trees with manure during the first five or six years, afterwards with 

 cow peas. 



When a tree dies from any cause, I reset the next spring and by 

 continued cultivation, the tree grows as thrifty as if in a cultivated 

 orchard of its own age. If the tree was set out in sod, in an older 

 orchard no doubt its growth would be unsatisfactory and the tree would 

 probably die. I find that hard-pan patches cause trees to die, and it is 

 uncertain whether trees reset on such ground will live or not. It is 

 rather hard to get trees to grow in wet places, but after being started 

 two or three years, they do as well, or better, than trees set in more 



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