MY DUCHESS ORCHARD. 



303 



the tree in the woods. Yon get that same condition in the root. 

 If your root is soft — and if you have moisture in the ground, the 

 root is soft — it is protected ; and the top may kill off, but it will 

 sprout up and give you another tree. I want to call your attention 

 to the propriety of this position of mine, in view of the fact that 

 Air. Bush and Mr. Howard and Mr. Somerville and a number of 

 other people I know, say they do not cultivaie but seed their or- 

 chards down and mulch. I have been in their orchards, and I find 

 they give them the very best cultivation, but they cultivate them 

 with their hogs ; the hogs root up the soil, and no water runs off, 

 but it stays where it falls, and if the hogs are good for nothing else 

 they have watered the orchard by saving the water that fell, and 

 have picked up the fallen and wormy apples. It is a splendid idea, and 



VIEW ACROSS MR. STONE'S GRCH.^iRD SHOWING ROW OF PEERLESS TREES. 



it gives us a solution, I believe, of the whole question that comes 

 up here year after year in regard to the killing of our orchards, that 

 what our orchards need is moisture. We have not got a drove of 

 hogs, but we see in some way that the trees get moisture. Our soil 

 in one orchard is nothing but sand a hundred feet deep, but there 

 is in it a slight admixture of clay, and you would say it is a sandy 

 orchard. The only way to keep the trees alive is to give them cul- 

 tivation. I could fence it and seed it to clover and turn in the hogs, 

 but I do not do that, so I cultivate. Another orchard is black, 

 sandy loam with clay subsoil. I have lost an orchard on that ground 

 by not cultivating, and if I cannot raise an orchard there when I 

 do not cultivate I might raise one by cultivating, and I cultivate that 

 orchard thoroughly. We come as near as possible to not allowing 

 a weed to grow in that orchard. There is a time when we cannot 

 cultivate, and after the crop is off we plow up the orchard and put 

 «table manure all over the orchard. 



