PROCEEDINGS OF THE WINTER MEETING. 59 



Mr. Dunwell: Do you know of any crop that will make a growth to 

 hold snow and make a mulch in the spring? 



Mr. Morrill: I have a neighbor who is using oats. They live long 

 enough to catch all the foliage that falls, and they furnish sufficient 

 material to catch and hold the snow, and in the spring they are a dead 

 mulch; and they protect the land by saving the leaves where they fall, 

 and prevent severe freezing and too rapid thawing. 



Judge Russell: What time do you sow them? 



A Member: We sowed, in a portion of our orchard last fall, crimson 

 clover. That is one thing I have neglected. I should have brought a 

 stem. It is looking finely now, but whether it will stay, and go on 

 and make a growth, after the freezings and thawings of March, I don't 

 know; it looks well now, however. 



Q. When did you sow it? A. After the first rain in August. The 

 first time it was moist enough. 



Q. How high did it get in the fall? A. It did not stool out at all. We 

 also sowed seven acres with a drill, after turning a rye crop under. 

 That is looking finely. Have any others tried it? 



Mr. Morrill: There is a good deal of doubt about crimson clover. In 

 western New York, the experience seems to have been the same as here. 

 They went into the matter thoroughly in Rochester, but the concensus 

 of opinion was that, even if it never lived the winter through, it was 

 profitable to sow it. At the same time they agreed that there was 

 danger in attempting to sow it in a peach orchard; that it secreted an 

 excessive amount of nitrogen if it was continued too long. But experi- 

 ments conducted at Cornell showed the value of an acre's growth was 

 |13, dead the first of December, and from that down to $7 or |8, and 

 from that they concluded it was very profitable. Some men, however, 

 further east, said that even where it was killed there were good results. 



Mr. Rice: Do you know whether the two have been compared, oats 

 and crimson clover? 



Mr. Morrill: I don't know of any such comparison. My own opinion 

 is that the principal benefit to be derived from the oats would be simply 

 the retaining of the foliage and the covering of the soil to prevent freez- 

 ing and thawing and not so much for the manurial value of the oats. 



Mr. Rice: When we sowed crimson clover, we did not sow it for 

 the green growth, but for the fertilization from the root. When you 

 get crimson clover that will stand three inches above the surface of 

 the ground, you will have roots nine inches below the soil. We sowed 

 it for the benefit of the fertilization from the root. When the plant was 

 two or three inches above the ground the root would be eight or ten 

 inches in the ground, and there would be a mass of fibres as large as 

 your hand. 



Mr. Morrill : That is true, and the root is as good a nitrogen trap as 

 the ordinary red clover. 



Mr. Rice: Yes, sir, you derive these benefits from the same source 

 as in case of large red clover, 



Q. Is it profitable to put ashes around young peach trees, when setting 

 in the spring? 



Mr. Morrill: Keep it away from your roots. If you have ashes to 

 3^PPly? put it on broadcast. The potash will not get away until u^d. 



