840 EXPERIMENT STATION" RECORD. 



Only a limited amount of data was obtained from company and rented 

 orchards, but the survey indicates that those orchards managed by the owners 

 themselves are giving the largest yields and incomes. The largest yields and 

 incomes are being obtained on the average from soils of limestone origin. Clean 

 cultivation with cover crops is the popular method of handling orchard soils. 

 The 3-year-average income for orchards that have been cultivated 5 years or 

 more since bearing is 108.3 per cent greater than for those orchards which have 

 been in sod continually for the same length of time. The nonbearing orchards 

 are generally intercropped with corn, although in many a 3-year rotation of 

 corn, wheat, and hay is used. Stable manure on sod orchards gave the highest 

 yield, while in cultivated orchards about the same yields were obtained from 

 the use of either manure or commercial fertilizer. The greatest yields were 

 obtained when both were used. 



Although about 80 per cent of the orchards are pruned in the spring, pruning 

 has not been practiced systematically and in most cases is poorly done. The 

 most common insects found are San Jos§ scale, codling moth, green aphis, and 

 woolly aphis, all being well controlled except the woolly aphis on the roots. The 

 most troublesome diseases are collar blight, apple or cedar rust, and leaf spot. 

 Black rot and twig blight are serious in some orchards. The collar blight 

 is especially bad on the Grimes. Practically every orchardist in the country 

 sprays. Lime-sulphur and arsenate of lead is the mixture generally used. 



Data are given on the cost of labor and various orchard operations. The cost 

 of producing a barrel of apples was $1.25. The 3-year-average gross price per 

 barrel was $2.25, leaving a net profit of $1 per barrel, and with a 3-year average 

 yield of 40.2 bbls. per acre the net profit per acre was $40.20. About 50 per 

 cent of the orchards in the county are producing below the average in yield and 

 income, others are yielding twice as much as the average. 



The fertilization of peach orchards, W. H. Axdebman (West Virginia 8ta, 

 Bui. 150 {1915), pp. 3-39, figs. 10). — This bulletin describes three cooperative 

 fertilizer experiments with peaches. The first was started by L. 0. Oorbett in 

 1899 in the Miller orchards at Paw Paw and continued through 1904. The 

 second was started by A. L. Dacy under the direction of the author in 1911 in a 

 7-year-old orchard on the property of the Sleepy Creek Orchard Company, and 

 the third was started in 1911 in a young orchard at Cherry Run, W. Va. The 

 results of the three experiments are presented and discussed and a brief 

 review is given of fertilizer experiments with peaches conducted at other 

 stations. 



In the earlier work in West Virginia better results were secured from com- 

 plete fertilizers than from incomplete fertilizers. Of the separate elements, 

 nitrogen gave the best results. Potash checked development and in some cases 

 killed the trees and phosphoric acid exerted no influence on vigor or pro- 

 ductiveness. 



The experiments at Sleepy Creek and Cherry Run were both conducted on a 

 shale loam soil, low in fertility. In the Sleepy Creek test the yearly growth 

 of trees treated with nitrate of soda has been double that of plats receiving 

 no nitrogen. The bearing surface of nitrogen-fertilized trees was two and one- 

 half times that of the nonnitrogen-fed trees at the end of the second year and 

 there was a still greater difference at the end of the fourth year. The leaves 

 of the nitrogen blocks were healthier and larger in size and about two and one- 

 half times as numerous. The nitrogen plats set an average of 76 per cent fruit 

 buds each year against 60 per cent on the nonnitrogen plats. The yield of fruit 

 was nearly doubled by the use of nitrogen. The fruit was not so highly colored 

 on the nitrogen blocks and maturity was delayed several days. The high color 

 of the fruit on the nonnitrogen plats is attributed to the extra sunshine that 



