162 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



be well for them to consider this. Our subsoil is of a gravelly, sandy 

 nature; our surface soil is a mixture. It is a gravelly loam, consisting of 

 a little clay and considerable loam for perhaps two or three feet. Then 

 we strike a coarse gravel and then a fine sand, and below that is a coarse 

 gravel where we find plenty of water. 



Mr. Willard: I must confess that I think I know less and less, 

 every year, about such subjects as that. At one time I had clearly 

 defined theories as to what could be done under such and such conditions, 

 but I have seen things so radically different that I have made up my mind 

 that, so far as theorizing is concerned, it isn't of much use. My idea 

 has been, and is still, that an apple orchard on a good loam with clay bot- 

 tom is in a good enough place, and I think that is so with most fruits; 

 and yet, some of the finest apple orchards I have ever seen, and also plum 

 and pear, are on soils that haven't a particle of clay within half a mile. 

 To illustrate: Prof. Bailey, I presume, and many others, have felt that 

 a pear must be upon a clay subsoil or something of that sort. One of 

 the finest pear orchards I ever saw was where I dug down as far as I could 

 with a spade, and then I went to the bank of the river and looked up, and 

 you couldn't see a particle of clay for seventy five feet. There are some 

 of the finest apples in Nova Scotia, where there is apparently no clay at 

 all. So it would seem that what is essential in one section, with a cer- 

 tain environment, has no bearing in others, and still the prevalent opin- 

 ion is that a good clay loam with a good subsoil is the proper thing. 



Mr. Kehoe: I have had some experience in setting an orchard on dif- 

 ferent kinds of soil, and I supposed that a clay or loam soil was just the 

 place. Well, when I set my orchard out, about eighteen years ago, I set 

 it on a piece of land of about three acres. There was about an acre of 

 this orchard that was clay loam, with a very light, mucky soil on top, 

 that reached from eight inches to a foot. Then there was a heavy clay 

 soil. I ditched it thoroughly, so it was always dry. The rest of it rose 

 up on a hard clay knoll. Some of this knoll descended to the north, and 

 part to the south. I set my orchard out there, and all the trees were 

 alike. The rows ran north and south, across both the high and the low 

 land. The result was that, on the low land, the trees gradually died off, 

 one by one, but on the hard ground, at the top of the hill, are perfect trees, 

 all alive. I couldn't raise currants there, but I could raise corn and 

 wheat or any other crop in abundance, on the lower part, but I find that 

 the place for apple trees is on the high ground. 



Mr. Beal: I would like to have Mr. Willard's experience in this matter; 

 whether he has found that one kind of apple does well on one kind of soil 

 — whether it develops better on one soil — and another kind on another. 



Mr. Willard : I understand what the gentleman means, and I am sat- 

 isfied that such conditions do exist. Because an apple does well in my 

 soil is no evidence that on some other soil it will do well, or that it may 

 not do better. Our trees have various temperaments. They don't all 

 want the same treatment, and we must know how to handle them best. 



Mr. Morrill: I don't like to close this discussion without calling Mr. 

 Willard's attention to one thing that came out in his paper — his speak- 

 ing of the Ben Davis as being such a favorite market apple, and out-sell- 

 ing the other varieties. I have been a close observer of Chicago markets, 

 and they have all sorts of buyers, different classes; and it is the big Ben 



