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‘petted ’ al ail 
WINTER OF 1898-9 IN ITS EFFECT ON MY ORCHARD. 125 
Currants and gooseberries, with light protection, came through uninjured. 
In conclusion will state that though considerable snow fell during the win- 
ter, it drifted very much, some parts of the ground being bare and others be- 
ing benefited. All my bearing fruit trees are planted on a southern slope 
and have been planted from ten to fifteen years. Young trees are on a 
northeast slope. The soil is a rich black loam, varying in depth from fifteen 
to thirty inches, part of which has a gravelly subsoil, and the rest has 
blue clay. 
WAUSAU, WIS., TRIAL ORCHARD. 
A. J. PHILIPS, WEST SALEM, WIS. 
The week ending Nov. 4th, I spent mostly at the aforesaid orchard. I 
paid each tree a personal visit and gave many of them a kind word for 
their good behavior and fine appearance. To me there is much satisfaction 
in these interviews, as the trees cannot dispute anything I say. The growth 
of all since my June report is all I could ask. Then I reported that the 
principal losses were confined to a row of eighteen Newell trees, and that 
all would have to be replaced, but today, Nov. 3rd, I find that twelve of 
them have so far recovered that I have decided to give them another year’s 
trial and replace only six. 
One fact that is being taught here is that trees with an abundance of fi- 
brous roots do not teke hold and grow as vigorously as those with three or 
more large clean main roots with but few fibres. Another is that good two- 
year-old trees planted by the side of four-year-olds of the same variety need 
only about four years of growth and care to get ahead in size and appear- 
ance of their elder rivals; and still another is that grafts set where 
they are to be left to grow with roots unmutilated will outstrip the older 
trees in six or seven years and make better trees. These conclusions I have 
fully demonstrated in my own orchard. : 
Another thing for planters to heed is to plant the plat out square. I lost 
in a corner where the land is rather low and wet in the spring some ten 
cherry trees—more than in all the rest of the orchard. I will replace them 
(if I have charge) next spring but will raise the ground some and report 
the result later on. I find also that the Kaump apple tree stood last win- 
ter much better here than it did in southern Wisconsin. I find also that 
the Avista here is so far perfectly free from blight and makes a much better 
growth than it does in my own orchard, As before stated, I planted the first 
three years about 120 Virginia crab trees for top-grafting experiments. Of 
these about twenty have entirely new tops. Some seventy have partial new 
tops, and some thirty are ready for their first grafting next spring, while 
the seventy are ready to be finished, for which I have the scions cut—and I 
prefer to cut them in the trial orchard as far as I can. The wood is well 
Tipened, and while they may be no better I prefer them. 
The trees to be replaced next spring are as follows: One Duchess, two 
Northwestern Greenings, two Longfields, six Newells, one Repka, three 
Dominions, two Eurekas, one Malinda, ten Early Richmond cherries and 
one Hawkeye plum, a total of twenty-nine trees. There is space left for 
some forty trees, so if any nurserymen have any new varieties they desire to 
have tested they can send two or three for that purpose the coming spring. 
The Windorf, a local seedling of Marathon county, I am testing both here 
