TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 59 



•oil on the north slope of the hill produces abundantly, and across the 

 fence on the same slope it is productive. The trees are large and thrifty. 

 Now I would like to know what to do with that orchard. 



Mr. Morrill: Mr. Winans of Benton Harbor had such an experience, 

 and brought about continued fruitfulness by " ringing" (girdling) the 

 trees. The main limbs were the part girdled. The work was done in June 

 and cutting was made down to the cambium layer. 



Mr. Samuels: Cut down the orchard and devote the ground to potatoes. 



Mr. Rice: I had supposed the Baldwins to be top-grafts upon Colyert; 

 but since reading Mr. Beecher's paper at our last annual meeting, statinu; 

 the quality of the Colvert as a stock, I have concluded the trouble was 

 there; I have reason to suspect the stocks were Spy. 



Mr. Alex. Hamilton of Ganges: I do not believe the root [stock] makes 

 any difference as to fruitfulness. 



Mr. Samuels: Have you had the soil analyzed? 



Mr. Rige: No; but good apples grew there when I was a boy. 



Mr. Hamilton: I think the trees are not old enough, that they will 

 yet bear well. The orchards of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Baragar, in my 

 vicinity, and one of my own, mostly of Baldwins, bore nothing for twenty 

 years or more. 



Mr. A. G. Gulley of Agricultural College: If Mr. Rice's stocks were 

 Spy, their influence may still be felt. 



Mr. J. F. Taylor: Underdrainage is a thing to look into. The soil may be 

 made dry enough to check growth and so cause formation of fruit buds 

 and continuous bearing. 



Prof. L. R. Taft: Underdrainage was effective with the old apple 

 orchard at the Agricultural College. From my own experience I agree 

 with Mr. Glidden as to injury to foliage of fruit trees by some widely 

 extended climatic disturbance; but there were great growths of fungi, 

 induced, very probably, by those untoward conditions. There was the 

 apple-scab fungus, and another which caused the leaves to turn yellow, 

 and which at the college was not affected by spraying; the latter was not 

 so prevalent upon cultivated trees as upon those uncultivated. 



Mr. Rice: There is a twenty-foot well in one corner of that orchard. It 

 is usually dry, but the water never comes nearer the surface than twelve 

 feet. But the trees do no better nearer the well, so the trouble can not be 

 lack of drainage. The subsoil is hardpan and the soil several feet deep 

 though varying. 



Wm. P. Green of Eaton Rapids spoke against the use of water-sprouts 

 for grafts. They grow rapidly but are slow of fruitage. 



