44 STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



received the same price for botli. Eemeniber that iiiiniber two was a i^er- 

 fect apple except for size. 



A Member — I would like to have an answer to Question No. 6 : "What 

 are the best combinations of cover crojis?" 



A. I use vetch alone, not in combinations. 



Q. How is vetch on heavr lands? 



Mr. Smjthc— Search me, I don't know; I haven't any heavy laud. 



Q. How Avould field i)eas do with cover crop? 



A. We have put in hogs, fed them down, and find them a complete 

 cover crop grown through Maj and June. 



A Member — I have tried oats and vetch this year and have found the 

 oats to make a very good combination. 



Mr. Smythe — We must not get confused — oats is a catch crop^ — a cover 

 crop is one that stays all through. 



A Member— I would not want any crop growing when fruit trees were 

 maturing their fruit. 



Q. How early should the vetch be sown to be successful for a good 

 cover crop? 



Mr. Hilton — You can sow vetches any time after the first of July, 



Q. How late would they be successful? 



A. That depends upon the season. Last year Ave sowed the 7th of 

 November and they came u]> and while they did not do anything as a 

 winter cover they grew well this last spring. W'e have had a fair cover 

 given by vetches sown on the 20tli of October, but they did not do as well 

 this year. As a usual thing they will make a fair growth if sown as late 

 as tlie middle of Sei)tember. There is no cro]) that we have tried that 

 will do as well sown over as hmo- a i>eriod as winter vetches. 



Q. Have you had any experience with them on clay? 



A. Not on true clay, but on a vei-y heavy loam, a loam that has a 

 stiff blue clay only a few inches beloAv. I will bring down a sami)le 

 plant that grew on that kind of land last year. I dug the plant last 

 June. 



Mr. Koe — I took a trip last summer for the ]mrpose of examining 

 orchards in western IMichigan and covered 500 miles through the fruit 

 section and visited a great many of the leading growers of Avestern 

 Michigan, and I found that the one cover that has given the best safis- 

 faction — and it Avas }>roved to be so from the crops of fruit — ^was rye 

 and vetch. I notice tliis more marked in Mr. Sessions' orchard, and he 

 had been using it for a number of years. So all along up the line Avhere- 

 ever it had been tried the results had been vei'y satisfactory. 



Chairman — For my oAvn part I prefer either oats or barlcA' to rye. 



Mr. Smythe — That is my ex]>erience. 



Chairman^ — ^ly reason for this preference is that the A^etches Avill al- 

 ways make a marvelous growth in the spring after very earliest oppor- 

 tunity. The oats and the barley make a good lusty growth in the fall 

 Avhich the A'etches do not do. The rye Avill not make the growth in the 

 fall that oats or barley do. Another thing, if for any reason the cul- 

 tivation is delayed a little in the spring you will not be troubled Avith a 

 a lot of hard straw for the season because the barley and oats are done 

 Avlth their business in the fall. 



Q. What proportion do you use. 



A. For a bushel of oats or barley we use from twenty to thirty pounds 



