286 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



MuJchiug I consider nearly as important as watering. About two or 

 three weeks after planting give your beds a good top dressing of well 

 decayed barn-yard manure three or four inches thick well pulverized. 

 This mulch will be found a great help to encourage growth and bloom. 

 On account of our short growing season, very hot and bright sunshine, 

 our bedding plants should be planted closer than it is generally done 

 to give immediate effects. The importance of this method, I noticed par- 

 ticularly on our place this summer. One variety of canna was planted 

 farther apart than usual and at this date too much bare ground is 

 visible. Of course it will look all right by September, but who likea to 

 wait that long for a bed to reach perfection? With good rich soil, liberally 

 watered and heavily mulched close plarting is not injurious, but better 

 and more pleasing effects are attained earlier in the season instead of 

 waiting till two or three weeks before frost. 



Another plant that appreciates plenty of water is the hardy phlox. 

 The many complaints I have heard about this plant not doing well 

 this season (1911), are undoubtedly due to the lack of water. The phlox 

 on the campus are looking magnificent, due to plenty of moisture. This 

 plant may be hardy but it cannot be neglected and then be expected to 

 give satisfaction. 



TILLAGE OF ORCHARDS. 



l?OY E. MARSHAU., T.lSCOX.y. 



The tillage of orchards, although often neglected, is' widely recog- 

 nized as beneficial and especially in regions of dry summers and cold 

 winters. Cultivation improves the physical- condition of the soil, aug- 

 ments the chemical activities and conserves the soil moistures. The sod 

 or weed mulch common in many Nebraska orchards robs the trees of 

 plant food and harbors a number of orchard pests. In experiments 

 where tilled and sod mulched orchards were compared, it has been 

 found that there is a larger yield of larger apples in the tilled orchard 

 and that they keep longer, have better quality, the trees and fruit are 

 more uniform, the trees are in better health, the leaves come out earlier 

 in the spring and fall later m the fall and that there is less dead wood 

 ihan in the sod mulch. The sod mulched apples are more highly colored, 

 mature one to three weeks earlier and the trees are more shallow 

 looted. 



Oi-chardists who have practiced thorough cultivation have found that 

 they do not have as much loss from the falling of immature fruit during 

 ihe dry seasons as those who have not cultivated or have only culti- 

 vated a few times. If the season is dry the orchard should be culti- 

 vated quite frequently and later than usual so that enough moisture 

 will be conserved to mature the fruit crop. One prominent fruit grower 

 in Nebraska, reports that he cultivated fourteen times last season. No 

 definite number of cultivations can be set, as it will vary with the 

 section of the state in which the orchard is located and the amount and 

 time of the rainfall during the season. 



