132 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



plow and turn everything under five to six inches deep, smooth 

 and clean. In two to three weeks go on and give the land a thor- 

 ough dragging and by the first of September pulverize the ground 

 with the disc-harrow. By the twentieth of September start the 

 plow again, turning the furrow seven to eight inches deep, and fol- 

 low with a subsoil plow, going sixteen to eighteen inches deep. 

 This breaking up of the subsoil will form a reservoir that will gath- 

 er and retain the fall rain and water from melting snow all through 

 the winter and spring. This is very important. The future orchard 

 will certainly require all the moisture thus stored for future need. 

 I am thoroughly convinced that more fruit trees die from lack of 

 moisture than from all other causes combined. 



In the spring, as the ground gets in proper condition start the 

 pulverizer and drag and keep at it at intervals of a few days when 

 the soil has become warm and in fine tilth — and you are now ready 

 to set out the trees. In future years you will be greatly gratified 

 and be abundantly repaid for all the time, labor and pains taken in 

 the preparation of this foundation for the future orchard. 



Mr. Richardson: I don't know how it is down where Mr. Haw- 

 kins lives, but where I live the extreme cold of winter and the 

 occasional dry seasons make the subsoil fine enough. I have seen 

 the time when by removing the top sod from the ground you could 

 shovel the subsoil out nearly as readilv as gravel. It was thorough- 

 ly dry, but the clay was in little round balls like gravel. 



Mr. H. V. Poore: In the section of country I live in that meth- 

 od is not the one to follow. I have seen our ground so saturated 

 with water that a horse would go down to his knees. A commer- 

 cial orchard planted that way would not do at all. I have gone 

 down forty feet with no other implement but the spade, and I do 

 not believe such a method could be applied in that kind of soil. I 

 believe a great deal of the information gained here cannot be ap- 

 plied everywhere as a general thing. Our state is so variable in 

 many little details, the climatic and soil conditions are so different, 

 that no general system can be adopted, but something adapted to 

 our various conditions, climate, soil, etc., is what we wish and must 

 have in order to achieve success, in my opinion. I have seen 

 twenty-four years of such a variable condition of climate, soil and 

 moisture that it has puzzled me to come to any definite system, even 

 with what might seem conclusive experience. With a certain sys- 

 tem I may make a complete success one year, and with the same 

 system make just as complete a failure the next year. In the or- 

 chard I have had no trouble with trees planted with an ordinary 

 preparation of the soil. 



Mr. Van Ness: I would like to inquire which is the better 

 ground for plums, sandy soil or a heavy clay soil. I have nearly all 

 my plums in heavy ground, but I have a sandy piece I would like 

 to put into plums if it can be recommended. 



