Summer Meeting. 135 



and made the grazing better later in the summer. My trees were 

 headed ^ow, and when they commenced bearing many apples would 

 hang so low that hogs could eat them from the trees. After this 

 I kept the hogs in the orchard the year around, except when they 

 would eat apples from the trees; then they were kept out till ap- 

 ples were picked. 



I did not feed my hogs in the orchard, as they tramp the 

 ground very hard about the feeding place, which will soon kill fruit 

 trees. But they had access to the orchard from the feeding place, 

 and the orchard was an ideal place to raise hogs with a crop of 

 clover to graze on and the shade of a fine young orchard to rest in. 

 They would eat wormy apples that dropped and many insects that 

 were in the pupa state. 



As my trees got larger I mowed the clover and let it lie on tne 

 ground as a mulch. With this m.anagement I always got one crop, 

 usually two and sometimes three, besides the growth on my trees — 

 a crop of hogs, a crop of hay and a crop of apples. Since seeding 

 the orchard to clover I let the clover grow two years and cultivate 

 one year. With this treatment my trees have made a splendid 

 growth, and my profits from my hogs have paid all expenses of cul- 

 tivating and pruning my apple trees carefully and worming twice 

 a year, besides supporting my family and paying off a mortgage on 

 my farm, which I went in debt for. My orchards that are 13 to 15 

 years old have borne regular crops of apples since they commenced 

 to bear, except in 1904, while many orchards in Missouri failed two 

 or three years in succession, but I cannot say whether the treat- 

 m.ent I gave them was the cause or not. Hogs always add to my 

 income when I have a crop of apples; they never fail, and are a 

 very pleasant help in time of failure of the apple crop, which you 

 all know occurs sometimes. 



STOCK RAISING AND ORCHARDING. 



(By W. H. H. Stephens, Bunceton, Mo.) 



For the past twelve years I have been devoting some time and 

 thought to growing a commercial orchard in connection with stock 

 raising. Whenever I could graze stock hogs in an orchard without 

 injury to my trees, I have followed that plan. In some instances 

 have pastured shorthorns on the gi'owing clover without any pel"- 

 ceptible injury to the trees, the limbs of which have not been borne 



