FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 9 



produce wheat, oats, corn, hay and a general diversity of farm crops. 



On this same orchard we produced fourteen tons of clean beets after 

 the tare was taken while the trees were growing, per acre. This will 

 give you an idea of the kind of soil that it is. 



This orchard that I am speaking of, was planted twenty-one years 

 ago last spring. It has produced seven crops, commencing to bear 

 fourteen years from the planting. 



Our plan, and it is one that we have followed for several years, is 

 a compromise between clean cultivation and grass mulch or along that 

 line. We plow once a year, in the spring as soon as the ground is in 

 condition to work. After getting it in condition, we sow Canada field 

 peas, two bushels to the acre. When the peas have matured we turn in 

 the hogs. 



And right here I want to say that I have been asked about having 

 hogs run in the orchard. T have answered this question a good many 

 times and I would like to make this statement here now so that it 

 will go on record, if any body has had trees injured by hogs it is be- 

 cause he had too many hogs or not enough orchard and did not feed 

 his hogs well enough. The destiny of a hog is to eat and to be eaten ; 

 and that is the only use for which a person should keep a hog. 



After the peas have been harvested by the hogs, we spread shelled 

 corn in the orchard. By this way we aim to have about five hogs to 

 ihe acre and Ave rely upon our fertilizer which comes from the stock 

 that eat the shelled corn, fed out on the open fields to hogs. We allow 

 (lie hogs to remain in the orchard until the fruit begins to bear the 

 limbs of the trees down within reach of the animals and then Ave take 

 them out and keep them out until the fruit is picked. After Avhich they 

 are returned to pick up any apples that may be left and are kept in as 

 long as the weather will permit. 



We have used a little commercial fertilizer but the aim and object 

 with us has been to get humus. If Ave can get this we can get everything 

 else we want for the production of fruit. 



I haAe no Avar to make on men Avho belie\ 7 e in clean culture except 

 I do not believe that it applies to the apple orchard, the life of which 

 should be from seventy-five to perhaps one hundred and tAventy-fi\'e 

 rears. 



I have trees that my father set out that are sixty-five years old and 

 they are now just in their prime, producing excellent fruit and in 

 good quantities. 



It is my theory, and I think it is borne out in practice that a clean 

 cultivation does not add anything to the fertility of the soil. It makes 

 available the elements that are in the soil, but if Ave can groAV Canada 

 field peas, Ave can get all the nitrogen we need. 



We get the nitrogen from the air. It is stored up in the product of 

 the peas and goes back to the soil. There is plenty of evidence that 

 Ave have sufficient nitrogen in the soil, as mushrooms grow very abund- 

 ant and is a great place for our city friends to come out Sunday after- 

 noons and gather them ; and if Ave get humus we can unlock the store 

 of phosphoric acid and potash that is in the soil ; and there is plenty 

 of it there for all time to come. 



Our aim is to have everything made as near dormant in the orchard 



