262 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



in the way of a location, if you have it to select. Get as close to the ideal 

 as you can, and if these conditions cannot be fully complied with, you can 

 do something toward it. 



IN PLANTING THE ORCHARD, 



if the soil was of a tenacious character, I should subsoil it very 

 deeply. I would not apply any manure whatever, but I do like to plow 

 under a clover sod, because it fills the ground up with vegetable mould 

 to work on in after years, and it loads the ground up with nitrogen; I pre- 

 fer the clover. I would not apply any manure of any description until 

 the trees have begun to bear. After selecting your soil you want to 

 determine the distance at which to plant. I think we do more over-plant- 

 ing on our land than under-planting; I mean that we plant too many trees 

 to get the best results. The time is rapidly coming when none but the best 

 can reach the profitable point in our markets, and we must plant with 

 that in view, giving plenty of room and plenty of feeding ground. Then 



THE SELECTION OF THE KIND OF TREES THAT YOU SHALL PLANT 



appears to me very important. We see men, when they want to buy trees 

 to set, looking for the cheapest stock, I think that three men out of four 

 in the State of Michigan are asking "who will sell these trees for 

 the least money." Now in nine cases out of ten he will get exactly 

 what he is looking for. There is always somebody who has undesirable 

 stock; it may not be poor, but it may not be the variety that is called 

 for, but it is simply sell cheap or lose. This is the rock on which 

 many a good orchard has been split — the hunt for cheap stock. Now, 

 I would say to every man, economize in every possible way, but first find 

 the very best stock you can, and then buy it as cheaply as possible. Do 

 not hunt for the high priced stock by any means, but hunt for the best 

 stock and take nothing but that. I do not mean great big trees, because 

 it is often the case that they are not the best stock. But choose those 

 that have been grown on good land from good stock. A large portion of 

 our nurserymen bud from nursery stock year after year and continuously. 

 Mr. Hale undoubtedly had this fact in mind when he laid out this rule, 

 that the man who buds that way takes some risk; in the ordinary pro- 

 cess of nursery work, in the budding, a mistake has occurred in a little 

 mixing, and if you go on and cut from these trees before they fruit, you 

 do not know really what you have got. Mr. Lyon says that in his test 

 orchard down here a large portion of the trees sent to the Michigan 

 Experimental Station are not true to name. In the pear, the apple and 

 the plum, this difference can be detected readily in the growth or the 

 peculiarity of variety. But there are only a few varieties of peach that 

 one can distinguish from others in the nursery. A man can distinguish 

 the difference between the yellow and the white peach, but he cannot 

 tell you what kind of a yellow peach or a white peach it is. Conse- 

 quently, if a mistake creeps into a nursery and continues right along, 

 everv vear it gets worse. 



