1<2 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



the oats, and yet among the trees it was mealy and nice, would not lump 

 up as it did in the adjoining fields. 



Ml'. Kellogg: I have done that in blackberries, and I believe it is one 

 of the grandest things I ever did. When you cultivate the last time, 

 about the 1st of August, sow your oats, and they will come up just as 

 you say, and it will make a big mat and lie there, and be rotten enougli 

 the next spring so that a cultivator will go right through and mix it all 

 up. It is specially valuable in blackberries. It seems to take the food 

 away from the blackberry just enough so that in case you have a little wet 

 weather in the fall the consequent growth is prevented in a measure, I 

 think, by covering the ground, ^'ou get that humus right on top of the 

 soil, and get the ground soft and mellow, and the water can not rise 

 through it. Some people do not take stock in capillary action, but I 

 know that the water will go to that loose stuff and it can not go up any 

 higher. In my raspberries and blackberries and everything of that sort 

 I would sow oats, I would use oats preferably to anything else. 



Mr. Fifield: I omitted to state that our soil was in such nice condition 

 this spring that we, in some of the orchards, simply put on our disc har- 

 row and it worked the orchard up in nice condition. 



Prof. Hedrick: In the west, in Oregon, they use the wild mustard 

 very largely as a cover crop. 



Prof. Peal: The common black mustard, is it? 



Prof. Hedrick: Yes, sir. It began to be known because it is a great 

 pest in some parts of the state. They find that the mustard stands in the 

 orchard over winter, and they plow it under. 



Prof. Beal: White mustard is sometimes used. Was that used? 



Prof. Hedrick: I do not think it was. 



Prof. Tracy: Mr. Graham was speaking of an orchard at Grand Rap- 

 ids which had never been taken care of, but which succeeded this year. 

 From his description I should imagine that the orchard had a cover crop 

 on it. The cover crop may be weeds — all right. I am not advocating 

 shiftless cultivation, mind, but if that orchard had been cultivated early 

 in the season, so as to get that growth, to get the trees ahead in order 

 to make the size of the fruit, I should believe its uniform healthful ness 

 and uniform productiveness had been largely due to the cover crop which 

 has always been on it. 



Mr. Morrill: I wish to say just a word in regard to Professor Tracy's— 

 not criticism, but suggestion, in regard to growing peach trees, and to 

 remind him that but a day or two ago he told us that the reason the great- 

 est perfection was obtained at the northern limit of successful produc- 

 tion was on account of the rapid growth and maturity of any plant or 

 vegetable, and I am quite firmly of the faith that that applies to a peach 

 tree just as well as it does to anything else. I do not know that I am 

 trying to grow peach trees to outlive me. I seek the greatest benefit in 

 the least possible time of those trees while I am here to enjoy it. We 

 know this, that in order to get a large crop of any particular fruit you 

 have first to have area, and we must have growth as quickly as possible, 

 providing the growth is sound. Now, the fact that the wood in these strong 

 growths is sound is evident to me, when I find my terminal buds are 

 nuiturt d so early as in this ])articular season of which we are talking, 

 the last of September and the 1st of October, without a frost, the foliage 

 all ripe and ready to drop off, without the slightest. discoloration and the 



