EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT. 431 



The results for the first year were given in detail upon pages 

 378-383 of the Report for 1897. The blight had been severe over the 

 whole Keiffer orchard, then twelve years from setting, and from it 

 the block of 49 trees was selected for its uniformity in size of trees 

 and amount of the disease. 



It will be seen from the above scheme that in the rows running in 

 one direction (up and down) all the trees in a given row receive the 

 same soil treatment, while in the rows running at right angles to these 

 the trees are pruned alike. Three rows are kept in sod and three 

 rows under cultivation. The row lying between these two belts of 

 three each was treated the same as the other portions of the orchard, 

 which surrounded the experiment block upon all sides. 



One row each of -the sod (row 1) and the cultivated belts (row 5) 

 received barnyard manure in duplicate amounts, namely, five tons 

 per acre of a mixture of horse and cow manure well rotted. Two 

 other rows (rows 3 and 7), similarly situated, received commercial 

 fertilizer, consisting of equal parts of ground bone, acid phosphate 

 and muriate of potash, and at the rate of 900 pounds per acre. Rows 

 2 and 6 received no manure or fertilizer and separated each of the 

 above pairs of rows. 



The orchard had been under cultivation, and the ground prepara- 

 tion consisted in seeding down, upon the 15th day of October, 1896, 

 the land under the right-hand three rows of trees. A mixture of 

 timothy and clover was used ; the catch was fine and a rank growth 

 covered the ground by the next July. 



In the pruning experiments the rows were taken at right angles to 

 the soil treatment above described, and consisted in only two points 

 of difference, namely, in the times of the removal of the blighted 

 twigs. The trees of the upper row were pruned only in January of 

 each year ; in the row next below, in both January and July, and in 

 the third row only in July. The middle row of the seven received 

 no pruning, and rows 5, 6 and 7 were a duplicate of rows 1, 2 and 3, 

 respectively. 



The first pruning was in January, 1897, and, following a season of 

 unusual blight, was very severe — so much so that more than half of 

 the tops of some of the trees were removed, many of the large limbs 

 being entirely removed. Any branch showing the dead tips and 

 'blighted patches were cut below the latter. 



In the July pruning only twigs showing the dead, leafless tips of 

 last year's destruction, and the dead twigs with their blighted leaves 

 attached and that had been killed the present season, were removed. 



