152 State Horticultural Society. 



possible, to give surface cultivation, using a disk or a spring tooth 

 harrow or similar implements. For the Ozark region, stable 

 manure is by great odds the best fertilizer to be used ; it not only 

 contains the necessary elements of plant food, but also greatly im- 

 proves the physical condition of the soil, A very suitable com- 

 mercial fertilizer for orchard use is obtained by mixing about three 

 hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds of bone meal and two 

 hundred pounds of sulphate or muriate of potash per acre, to 

 which may be added, if desired, fifty to a hundred pounds of ni- 

 trate of soda, or its equivalent, in dried blood or sulphate of am- 

 monia. The proper time, however, to begin renovation of an or- 

 chard is at the time it is planted, and the process should be con- 

 tinued as long as profitable crops are desired. 



There is one other point which, in some instances, has been a 

 serious problem and one against which there seems to be no cer- 

 tain means of protection. It is the root rots and similar troubles. 

 Men who have given the question consideration from the scientific 

 point of view, attribute its cause to certain parasitic fungi of the 

 mushroom type. Growers, on the other hand, are likely to 

 consider it as being due to improper soil conditions, new land, 

 borers and the like. From his own point of view, both the scien- 

 tist and the grower is right. Judging from quite extensive 

 observations made in the different parts of the State as to 

 the relative occurrence of the trouble on various kinds of 

 soil, it is very evident that root rot is much more pre- 

 valent on light soils, rocky ridges and hillsides, especially those 

 under which hardpan is close to the surface, or on soils that hold 

 water and are cold and sour and have a tendency to what the farm- 

 ers call buckshot or crawfish land, than on better soils, such as the 

 red limestone clay type represents. 



Trees planted under conditions where the struggle for exist- 

 ence is severe are bound to be less resistent to the attacks of disease 

 and unfavorable weather conditions than those planted on good 

 soil, where they are able to develop a vigorous constitution. It 

 comes very handy, whenever a tree dies from starvation or the 

 attack of borers, or some cause not discernable above ground, to 

 call it root rot. Root rot is generally not so very abundant in or- 

 chards that are located on good ground, which has suitable drain- 

 age and received proper cultivation. It is not to be disputed, how- 

 ever, that parasitic fungi of certain type are the direct cause of 

 root rot, but in some of the orchards on the ridges and hillsides 

 pr post-oak flats, and where in some cases as high as fifty per cent. 



