THE UNFRUITFUL TREE AND HOW TO CORRECT IT. 377 



Mrs. Franklin: That I don't know, I know it just came 

 into bearing, just a small tree. 



Prof. Beach: Does it stand in sod or cultivated ground? 



Mrs. Franklin: In sod and it is in heavy clay soil, that is, 

 most of his soil is heavy soil, and I fancy there is some where 

 the tree stands. It was on the lawn where it was all sod. 



Prof. Beach: Trees will do that. They will drop their 

 leaves in the extreme hot weather in order to protect themselves. 

 They cannot keep up the supply of water necessary for the leaves, 

 and they simply drop the leaves. In severe cases they will also 

 drop the fruit. The question at once comes up, has the tree 

 stored enough material in it to properly ripen the wood and 

 carry it through the winter successfully? That is a question 

 it would be hard to answer. I have known instances where such 

 trees would come through all right and grow a crop next year. 

 But the conditions you have described show that the tree is 

 suffering from lack of water during the dry season, and it needs 

 attention to the soil to make it fuller of humus so that it can 

 hold water better in order to carry the tree through. 



Mrs. Franklin: Wouldn't it be a good plan in a case like 

 that to take up the sod around the tree and remove it, fertilize 

 it thoroughly and not have the sod up close to the tree ? 



Prof. Beach: Yes. My advice would be to cover that soil 

 deeply with manure this fall, so as to give the roots that are 

 there a chance to get as much moisture as possible during the 

 winter and to help supply what will be taken from the branches, 

 because the branches will evaporate moisture during the winter. 

 Then in the spring I would spade around the tree a space as 

 wide as the spread of the branches and mix with that some well 

 rotted manure. You cannot do that in orchard conditions, but 

 in special cases you can. 



Mr. Clausen: What difference do you find, if any, in the 

 cultivated and uncultivated plots where the trees are in bearing? 



Prof. Beach: We have had some difficulty in getting the 

 different orchard plots into condition so we could make reliable 

 comparisons. The clover seeding was burned out at different 

 times on account of the hot, dry weather. However, we have 

 finally established the condition of blue grass sod in one plot, and 

 I can say this of the plot we have now established in sod, the 

 yield is going down all the while as compared with that where 

 we are giving cover crops and tillage. That simply supports the 

 results that were obtained in New York state in the work I 

 started there, which was afterwards reported on by Professor 

 Hedrick in the New York Station bulletins on tillage and cover 

 crops in orchards. That work was through a period of ten years. 

 It showed much better yields with tillage and cover crops than 

 in sod. Those of you who recall the experiment will remember 

 that the ten acre orchard was divided lengthwise through the 

 orchard, one-half in sod and the other in tillage. After several 



