VICE-PRESIDENTS BEPOBT, FIFTH CONG. DIST. 93 



creasing - beyond anything we have ever had. I have lived in Min- 

 nesota fprty-four years, and in traveling about the district I was very 

 forcibly struck with the number of orchards being set out. What 

 the outcome of this tree planting will be we cannot tell yet. They 

 say this climate is moderating from year to year, and that we are 

 not going to have any more hard winters, but I am not fully satis- 

 fied upon that score. 



Mr. Elliot: In speaking of Mr. Saner, the blind man, I wish 

 Mr. Leach had gone a little further into details in regard to that 

 orchard. I had the pleasure of visiting Mr. Sarver this past sum- 

 mer about the time the Duchess was ripening, and I was very much 

 interested in what he has done. He is a blind man, cannot see a 

 particle. When he goes out to his orchard he has to be led by 

 some one, or else he has to take some familiar path. The help they 

 have on that place of eighty acres consists of only three small boys, 

 the oldest about sixteen. Mrs. Sarver is an ideal woman for a 

 horticultural man to have. Mr. Sarver said to me, "We have eight 

 hundred trees in our young orchard, and I have been over those 

 trees three times on my hands and knees to take the weeds out of 

 the rows." They have crops between the rows. He went over 

 that orchard three times on his hands and knees. Last spring he 

 rigged himself for spraying, and the orchard was sprayed five 

 times. They sent some apples to the Pan-American, and the 

 superintendent told me they were the finest 1-ot of apples sent from 

 this state. There was not an imperfect apple in the lot, and the 

 Duchess were extremely fine. The trees were not as full this year 

 as last, neither were the Wealthy, but they had a remarkably fine 

 crop of fruit. 



Mr. Underwood: I would like to ask Mr. Leach whether his 

 orchard is thoroughly cultivated. 



Mr. Leach: The young part I keep thoroughly cultivated. 

 The old trees, the Wealthy which killed down in the winter of 

 1884-5, have grown up and are now bearing three or four bushels 

 to the tree. They are set only twenty feet apart, and the limbs 

 touch. I seeded it to clover, but I mow the clover and rake it up 

 around the trees so it has killed the grass about as far out from 

 the trunk as the top extends. I keep the ground free from weeds 

 by mulching with green grass, and I also use some barnyard mulch 

 every year, spreading it under the trees. 



Mr. Underwood: If young trees that are not doing anything 

 need thorough cultivation, that is, doing nothing but growing, 

 don't you think that a bearing tree, bearing its burden every year, 

 needs cultivation as much as a young tree? 



Mr. Leach: Well, there is a difference in this way: I prefer 

 to cultivate my older trees that are bearing by mulching rather 

 than plowing up the ground. Many of us cannot do the work our- 

 selves, we have to depend upon somebody else, and if I were to 

 put almost any man into my orchard he would ruin the trees. 

 I believe if the trees are kept well mulched and the mulching is 



