Winter Meeting. 131 



factory crops year after year throughout the life time of the orchard and 

 leave out all that is implied in the word cultivate. 



I am aware, and freely admit, that some wonderful crops of fruit 

 have been grown with but little or no cultivation. However, such crops 

 are an exception to the general rule, and do not furnish a sufificient 

 foundation upon which to found a general practice. Permit me to digress 

 for a moment, and pass from the orchard to the garden, to relate the 

 experience of two of my friends in potato growing. The past abnormal 

 season, one planted his potato patch, took sick and could not work it. 

 Weeds grew up and took possession of the ground, he hired a man to 

 mow the weeds and nothing more was done, and he dug twenty five 

 bushels of fine potatoes ! The other planted near one-half acre of early 

 Ohio, and on account of excessive rains which continued for weeks, only 

 succeeded in plowing and hoeing them once, and the ground was too 

 wet then to do a good job, yet he harvested seventy-five bushels of fine 

 potatoes ! While others who succeeded in cultivating and keeping their 

 potatoes clean did not have one-third as many. But should w^e now jump 

 to the conclusion that the best way to grow potatoes is to plant and not 

 cultivate? .Surely not. No one should ever attempt to lay down an 

 ■ron clad rule for the cultivation of crops. The rule must of necessity 

 be flexible to suit the season, and meet the variable conditions of land, 

 soil, climate, and the peculiar demands of each species, and variety of 

 fruit. In fact this is a deep, broad and important question, one upon 

 which a volume might be written, and one that can not be answered 

 briefly. We have very much to learn before we reach a satisfactory 

 conclusion as to the best method of cultivation ; or when best to begin 

 and where to leave ofi', or just how to cultivate and feed our orchards 

 to secure a healthy normal growth of wood, and at the same time pro- 

 duce a sufficient but not over abundant crop of well developed fruit buds 

 for a crop the ensuing year. The young orchard should be cultivated 

 from the time it is planted in order to bring the trees up to a bearing 

 size. Trees not having been cultivated may be of the fruiting age and 

 not be large enough to bear a peck, while the cultivated tree of same 

 age will have the capacity to bear a barrel of fruit. The finest, most 

 perfect and best paying crops of apples we have been able to grow were 

 from an orchard that was cultivated from start to finish except two 

 years while in red clover. We generally used a breaking plow in pre- 

 paring the ground for corn and many roots were broken. The corn was 

 cultivated in the usual manner, and the tree rows kept clean by use of 

 double shovel plow and hoe. About once in three years we gave a top 

 dressing of stable manure and some wood ashes scattered broad cast and 



