350 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In sowing my orchards to grain in this way, I can raise just as 

 much grain to the acre as though the trees were not there, and 

 this can be kept up until the trees will bear fruit enough to pay for 

 the use of the land, and then I sow clover with the last crop of 

 grain and cut it three times a year or pasture with hogs, and I think 

 it is a far better way than to let the orchard grow up to grass and 

 weeds. I prefer barley, as it is a shallow feeder and is on the land 

 but a short time and leaves the land very porous, and the land can 

 be ploughed early before much of the foul seed is ripe. 



I prefer large two-year-old trees for planting, especially when I 

 grow my own, as they are much easier dug, and a person is apt 

 to get most all the roots, so that replanting them does not give them 

 such a backset, and they do not require so much trimming as older 

 trees, where oftentimes three-fourths of the roots have been cut off 

 in digging. Most trees will bear one year earlier if planted out at 

 two years than if set at three or four. I use a spading fork for 

 digging single trees. I can dig two-year-old trees from the nursery 

 row with the fork about as fast as I can raspberry bushes, and I do 

 not cut the roots, and they are much quicker planted and more 

 sure to row. 



A year ago I planted an orchard of nearly 200 two-year-old trees. 

 According to my method I performed the labor alone and dug about 

 forty trees from the nursery row — the balance I uncovered from the 

 pit — and finished up in just eight hours and forty-five minutes, and 

 every tree grew. Now, if there is a man in the room who has a 

 method that will beat this, and by which I can save time or make 

 more trees grow, I would be glad to hear of it. 



But I am quite sure that there is not one here who has used 

 a check wire and spading fork as I do, that will ever be satisfied to 

 cross-furrow his ground and leave it rough, or take a half day for 

 two men to stake out the ground, and then not have the trees 

 in line after they are planted, not even one way. Many farmers 

 could be induced to plant out large orchards if they knew they would 

 not lose the use of their land for five or six years and could keep 

 them clean without much trouble and expense. 



The raising of many varieties of apples in Minnesota is no longer 

 an experiment, and by choosing the varieties recommended by this 

 society a person will have but little difficulty in raising plenty of 

 apples, and the time has come when there is no need of a farmer 

 in this state being very long without fruit. Often when my wife 

 says she is tired of cooking, I tell her, "I can live three times a 

 day on fruit." The man who engages in horticultural work will 

 leave behind him, when he has passed to the great beyond, the 

 best kind of monuments, that will live for ages after his grave is 

 green ; the man who causes one tree to grow where none grew before 

 is a public benefactor. 



