MY DUCHESS ORCHARD. 215 



sunshine thaws the bark on the southwest side of the tree. For sev- 

 eral years I raised corn or potatoes in my orchard. 



I do not think that the Duchess are early bearing trees, as least 

 mine were not. I began to mulch my trees about 1880. I have 

 seldom failed to make a good crop of Duchess apples. Some years 

 we have had more than 1,000 bushels. This year they were very 

 full of fruit, but owing to the great drouth and high winds, a great 

 many apples dropped off, and on account of the drouth we do not 

 •think that they were quite so large as they usually are. 



I have generally mulched my Duchess trees about every other 

 j'ear. I try to have a space mulched about as large around as the 

 limbs cover. In ten acres of orchard we pasture some eighty or one 

 hundred hogs, including pigs. 



MANIPULATION OF SOIL NECESSARY OR PROFITABLE 

 FOR A PLUM ORCHARD. 



DEWAIN COOK, WINDOM. 



Plum trees should make a strong growth each season, until 

 they get to bearing profitable crops. This can best be accomplished 

 by cultivation of some kind, and if a goodly quantity of stable man- 

 ure is incorporated into the soil the results will be more satisfac- 

 tory. 



Mulching a newly set plum orchard should never be resorted to 

 unless cultivation is impracticable, for the reason that the mulched 

 trees will not grow near as vigorously as will the cultivated trees. 



When the plum orchard gets to bearing freely, we have to be 

 careful not to cultivate too deep, especially close to the trees. 

 When the orchard gets to bearing heavily we prefer to have the soil 

 as near to forest condition as we conveniently can, which, of course, 

 precludes .any cultivation whatever, mulching the trees instead. The 

 plum, if allowed, will in one season fill the surface soil full of fine 

 roots, feeders for the fruit, and any cultivation which disturbs these 

 ieeders will reduce the size of the fruit. 



The winter of 1898-9 I hauled stable manure and mulched all of 

 my plum trees that were large enough to bear a bushel or more of 

 fruit to the tree, putting it on thick enough to keep down most of 

 the weeds and covering the ground completely. Well, the season 

 just passed we harvested some tv/o hundred bushels of fine fruit 

 from those mulched trees. My neighbor, Jos. Wood, in noting the 

 lieavy loads the trees were carrying, said: "The trees could never 

 -have matured the fruit if you had not fixed them up." 



