234 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



each row, and that just about works all the ground between. 

 Then I turn about and go the other way the next time, and in 

 that way I get along better with cultivation than in any other 

 way I have ever tried. The disc harrow, I think, is just the 

 thing; it is of a good width, and I can run close to the trees. 

 The limbs are as near as two feet of the ground, but I can run 

 up close with the plow and finish wuth the harrow. That has 

 been my method, and it works well. The tendency is to throw 

 the dirt towards the trees in running through with the disc 

 harrow and cultivating a season that way makes the ground 

 rather high around the trees, and I thought it might be neces- 

 sary to go through with the plow and turn the ground towards 

 the middle, perhaps the first time I cultivate in the spring; but 

 that is the only fault I can find with the disc harrow. If we 

 could reverse it and make it throw the dirt away from the trees 

 it would be just the thing; but cultivation is just the thing 

 anyway. 



Mr. A. K. Bush: I am a crank on shallow cultivation, and 

 while in Florida two years ago I saw what to my mind was 

 the ideal tool, and that was an arrangement something like 

 the Acme pulverizer. It was a light tool, and so arranged that 

 they used it with one horse, and they used it very much like 

 the tool Pres. Underwood was telling us about; it reached out 

 under the tree. It Avas a very thorough cultivation, cultiva- 

 ting very nicely under the trees and making a dust blanket, 

 and I thought it would make just the ideal tool for us to use in 

 our orchards. It is made by the same people that make the 

 Acme harrow. I intend to get one for my own use. 



Pres. Underwood: That was an advantage I appreciated 

 very much ; I could control the depth. I took off the center 

 shovels, and put on the 2-inch shovels, 2-inch shovels fur- 

 nished by the Planet Jr., and I could run it just as deep or as 

 shallow as I wanted to. Has acy one else anything to say on 

 this subject? 



Mr. Wm. Somerville: I think mj" method of cultivation is 

 cheaper than any of yours. I have a block of trees that were 

 set out in 1862, and there has not been a harrow or a plow 

 in there for twenty years. I make a pig pasture of that orch- 

 ard and mulch those trees every year, and that is all the cul- 

 • tivation I have given it for the last twenty years or more. I 

 let the pigs in there, and they make as good a job of culti- 

 vation as I want and do not charge me anything, and I think 

 it is the best and cheapest cultivation for our orchards, from 



