52 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than one per cent of the scions. We use scions, aiming to have one bud 

 right down in the cleft where it will be waxed over. 



For the first two years we either grow vegetables, such as potatoes, 

 or small fruit, such as strawberries, currants, raspberries, etc. We have 

 however, given up the plan of growing raspberries, as we doubt the 

 advisability of it. ATe now use generally currants or strawberries, al- 

 ternating occasionally with potatoes. You may know that all this time 

 I am using every possible opportunity to fill that ground with humus. 

 When growing strawberries, we plow under the straw used as a cover- 

 ing, the berry tops, also the jwtato tops, those all furnishing a certain 

 amount of humus. So we put in a crop of sand-vetch, put on stable 

 manure, and this practice we keep up for six, seven or eight years, 

 varying according to the orchard. 



In the second stage, about when the trees begin bearing, take out the 

 small fruits and begin to put in cover crops. That is one thing that 

 nmkes fruit growing so pleasant — it is this that makes it so interesting. 

 If we had a set of rules that we could lay down and follow, if we could 

 read from a book just what to do and how to do it. and then feel and 

 know that everything would come out just right and as you expected, 

 that delightful uncertainty that is always connected with this industry 

 would not be experienced. It is this that gives zest to the work. We 

 can have our plans; we can lay down our rules, but in the practical 

 application of them we will find that they have to be modified, perhaps 

 in 24 hours after the plan of action is determined upon. 



We work up our orchard just as early in the spring as possible, be- 

 cause every day the ground lies undisturbed, we are losing a great 

 amount of moisture by evaporation. So we plow our orchard just as 

 early as possible, and as a rule, work the orchard until the 1st of July. 

 One of our cover-crops is soy beans and cow peas. Perhaps you may not 

 get the same results that we do. but you will get good results. We culti- 

 vate the ground as liefore stated, until about the 1st of June with har- 

 rows and discs and cutaway harrow, occasionally following with a 

 spring tooth harrow. We drill in the soy beans with an ordinary grain 

 drill, omitting every third row. This makes cultivation possible again, 

 and this can be ke]>t uj) until the latter ]>art of July, and by doing 

 so you can hold the moisture, growing a cover-crop that can be used 

 to add humus and nitrogen to your soil. 



If your orchard is so situated that you can keep hogs, you can by 

 planting an earlier maturing soy bean, grow a good deal of hog feed, 

 turning the hogs in there. To repeat, my idea is to cultivate the orch- 

 ard, get a growth as much as possible early in the season, if you want 

 to grow cover-crop without cultivation, do it when your trees are not 

 growing, or bearing. This api>lies to young orchards that are just be- 

 ginning to bear. Then after the cow i^eas and the soy beans are done 

 growing, we have a multitude of pl.ants that can be used. Sometimes 

 I use turnips as a winter cover-crop. IMuch of the time I use vetch ; 

 indeed, I have used it for a number of years. We sow it sometimes 

 during August, while it does not make a very heavy showing, in the 

 fall, it will make a magnificent growth in the spring; it matures so 

 much quicker in spring than clover does. There is, however, an objection 

 that has been urged against this plan, and that is. that the water it draws 

 out of the ground may be needed by the trees. But the vetch takes as 



