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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Cultivation. Should crops be grown in the orchard, the cul- 

 tivation conforms to the necessities of the crop being grown. 

 Plowing in the spring and six or seven harrowings constitute 

 pretty fair orchard culture. At all events use level culture, that 

 is, do not ridge the tree rows one year and level them down the 

 next. Always level culture. The gang plow, reversible disc, 

 common cutaway disc, spring tooth, are what we use. 



We consider early cultivation important at least every other 

 year. On land that is to be built up we use the following method : 

 cultivate till June tenth, then sow clover, a mixture of alfalfa, 



Mr. Bingham in his low growing cherry orchard. 



red clover and sweet clover, if you please. Leave this till June 

 1st of the following year, then plow it under. Continue cultivat- 

 ing till August. The next year cultivate till June tenth and 

 repeat. 



Winter Protection. When the orchard is young and on an 

 exposed location the snow sometimes blows off and winter injury 

 results. To avoid this if the orchard is being cropped one should 

 sow a strip of oats or allow weeds to grow along the tree row to 

 catch the snow. We have used buckwheat, weeds, oats and 

 clover. After the orchard gets older the danger resulting from 

 no cover crop is less. When there is evidence of field mice the 

 trees should be mounded in the fall. 



A Member: Have you had any experience in using dyna- 

 mite to blast the holes? Will the trees do better in dynamited 

 holes? 



