FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 15 



hauling out these wood-ashes to the trees, aud so liberal was he in his 

 use of them, that out of the seventeen rows he covered only six, but 

 these six rows have produced more apples in this orchard under equal 

 conditions — no difference in soil — more fruit and better fruit in the 

 last seven years than the other eleven. I will say this for wood-ashes— 

 we did not get results, as Mr. Wilde says on the spur of the moment 

 as when we applied it to annual crops, but wood-ashes that I applied 

 have been worth — I would not undertake to say how much as I said 

 before, the six rows are much more valuable than the other eleven. This 

 is a proposition, as I said before that every person should work out 

 under his own conditions. 



A Member — How do you apply the wood-ashes? 



Answer — In this case they were fed over the whole ground twelve 

 years ago, care being taken not to get them up against the body of the 

 tree. 



A Member — Which apple do you think brings the best price in the 

 market, the small one, large or medium? 



Mr. Hall — I think the medium apple has the most ready sale. 



A Member— Have you ever had buyers kick on their being too large? 



Mr. Hall—Yes, 1 have! 



A Member — Don't you think the different sizes of the trees have 

 something to do with the limbs and the nourishment that come from the 

 trees? 



Mr. Hall — We see these conditions on individual trees. One side 

 of tlie tree is out-growing the other and needs attention to keep it 

 well balanced. This must be attended to with the prunning shears, in 

 such eases too much sap goes to one side while the other side is being 

 robbed. It is hard to overcome this and cannot well be done this year, 

 but next year by eliminating the strong growth, there can be a balanc- 

 ing up of the tree so that it will produce all right. 



I have a case in point. In an early day a log house was built upon 

 one corner of this orchard which later was burned down, the ashes 

 of which were left on the ground; later on the orchard was planted, one 

 tree near the location of the old house. One side of this tree is 

 feeding from this soil impregnated with ashes while the other side is 

 feeding from soil in a normal condition. So pronounced is the differ- 

 ence in the fruit upon the two sides of this tree that I have had many 

 very heated arguments with buyers, they believing the tree is from 

 two separate grafts. 



A Member — I would like to have an answer to question No. 33 : "How 

 can we get higher color in our fruit?" 



Prof. Eustace — This is a very important question just now when you 

 are coming in competition with western fruit which has that high color. 

 To my mind, it is a little doubtful whether we can in the East secure 

 color so as to compete with that secured on the western fruit. You 

 understand that the apples grown in the Hood Eiver and Yakima valleys 

 and other sections of the West are in the sunshine from the time the 

 trees are in bloom until the fruit is ready to be picked, except at 

 night. We must grow apples that are of fine color if we are to com- 

 pete with them on this point. How can we do it? I have seen at- 

 tempts made, careful experiments, endeavoring to put the red color on 



