302 ANNUAL EEPOET 



much, as a soil that is dry." Mr. Johnson mentions experiments that 

 he has made, watering trees Autumn and Spring with wonderful re- 

 sults, and adds: " Few persons recognize the fact that the roots of 

 the pear and apple love water (but not standing water) almost as 

 much and as well as the orange." He mentions pear trees in Colo- 

 rado large and healthy in earth so saturated with water as to kill the 

 grass. Speaking of the enormous crops of apples on Duchess and 

 Wealthy in Colorado, he adds: "The essential element of success 

 here was water — an abundance of water — and wet feet from April 

 to October." In another article on an orchard in his own county, he 

 says: "Of an orchard planted between fifty and sixty years ago I ob- 

 served three or four apple trees remarkable for their size and vigor 

 and laden with fair, smooth and (for their quantity) large-sized fruit. 

 Curiosity being excited, a closer inspection was made and it was found 

 that each one of these trees had one or more hog-wollows under it. 

 The site of the orchard was originally moist, if not wet, and close to 

 the creek's bank. If the largest and most valuable of our timber 

 trees grow best in a soil wet six months of the year, and moist twelve, 

 why not the apple? " 



In further support of my position I refer you to a report in your last 

 volume of transactions, in which mention is made of an orchard of 

 three hundred trees in Northeastern Iowa, set in 1865, and described 

 as follows : " Many of the trees are from ten to fifteen inches in diam - 

 eter and twenty to thirty feet in height. * • ♦ The soil a rich 

 black muck and so saturated with moisture that the lower edge of the 

 orchard is a springy bog." 



In the Gardeners Monthly of 1881 I read: "It is well known that 

 trees endure a much lower temparature in moist atmospheres than in 

 dry ones." 



Our esteemed friend Mr. Harris has always advised rich, moist 

 land for an orchard site. Facts are what count. I have given the 

 facts. 



The old Wolf River is growing where its roots were in water at cer- 

 tain seasons. An old seedling mentioned by E. Wilcox, of Trempe- 

 leau, which once bore twenty bushels in a year, stands on low ground, 

 near a marsh. 



If you have no water near your orchard site, and have slopes or hill- 

 sides, if the soil be all alike, the northern slope will contain the most 

 moisture, and on that account be best for the ordinary farmer, who is 

 apt to neglect it too much. A north slope with high, thick timber at 

 the north end is not so good as where the orchard does not extend to 



