30O MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Underwood : All the trees we have ever planted have 

 been too close. Sixteen feet apart is too close. I am planting 

 twenty-two feet now, and I think I shall plant twenty-five here- 

 after ; I don't know but thirty would be better. 



Mr. Richardson : There is an orchard in our part of the coun- 

 try known as the Holly orchard, planted twenty-four by thirty feet, 

 and the man in charge told me last week there were only three rows 

 he could drive through with a team. They cover the whole ground. 

 The orchard has been cultivated for twenty-five years, and it has 

 borne heavy crops of apples. 



Mr. Ferris (Iowa) : I would like to have him tell us about his 

 deep planting. 



Mr. Richardson : Oh, well, everybody knows all about why I 

 do that. I plant from two to two and one-half feet deep. Mr. 

 Darby, the man who put me on to this, is the only maa I know of 

 who plants in the fall and makes a success of it. He has a fine 

 orchard on a north slope and has fine crops of apples, and he plants 

 in the fall. The nicest grove of trees I ever saw was planted in 

 the fall, and from two to two and one-half feet deep. He puts the 

 trees down that deep, flattens the roots out with his feet, and he 

 makes a success of it. 



]\Ir. Fay : I would like to say one word in regard to seeding 

 an orchard down and letting it go uncultivated on account of the 

 blight. I cultivated an orchard for twenty years, and I was re- 

 warded with plenty of apples and very little blight. The trees were 

 of the Transcendent and Hyslop varieties, and they only killed out 

 on the lowest part of the ground. Three years ago I sold the place 

 and the man who bought it stopped cultivation of the trees, and 

 my son tells me that this year the orchard blighted almost to death. 

 So I do not believe in stopping cultivation when the trees become 

 old. My plan is to cultivate as soon as I expect apples, and my 

 orchard has been successful under cultivation. 



Prof. Green : I think it would be interesting to have Mr. 

 Richardson tell us how that orchard is cultivated. 



Mr. Richardson : It does not even have hogs in it. The fore 

 part of the season it was used as a calf pasture and then he mowed 

 a part of it, and a part was not touched, and he said it was a good 

 thing because it helped him out with his apples. We had big 

 winds last year, and it piled the apples up in heaps, but he sold 

 several carloads out of that orchard. I know he sold four or five 

 carloads. 



Mr. Underwood : Do you think deep plowing would help to 

 conserve the moisture? 



Mr. Richardson : I believe it would. If you cultivate deep, 

 if your ground is rough, and you get a heavy rain, it leaves the 

 ground full of water, and the soil has something to fall back on in 

 a dry time. You must not let the water that runs through your 

 orchard run away. 



Mr. Yahnke: I have listened to this discussion with a great 

 deal of interest, and we get a good many different opinions. Thus 

 one man reports good success with cultivation, another with seeding 

 down, another with another method, and surely every one is honest 



