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THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



ting that humus was needed also in the soil 

 to help retain moisture. The easiest and 

 cheapest way to furnish humus was by plow- 

 ing under green crops in the spring, such as 

 rye or clover. Cover crops served three 

 purposes : ( i ) The supply of nitrogenous 

 matter, (2) the winter protection of tree 

 roots, and (3) the addition of fertility. 



IV hat cover crop would you advise? was 

 asked. 



Mr. Smith favored crimson clover for the 

 Niagara District, sown in July. The hairy 

 vetch seed takes easier and covers the 

 ground well, but is rather expensive. Peas 

 are good, only that they die in the fall, and 

 consequently lack in the winter protection. 

 Cow peas are excellent also for adding fer- 

 tility, but they also die in the fall. 



Cover crops should be plowed under as 

 early in the spring as possible, else they rob 

 the soil of its moisture. 



Is it costly to adopt this practice? 



On the other hand, it is economical. It 

 really only leaves ten weeks of cultivation, 

 say from the first of May until the middle of 

 July, for at the latter date the ground is 

 seeded down until the following spring. 



PitUNING PEACHES AND PLUMS. 



PRACTICALLY the same advice was 

 given on this subject as we have so 

 often advocated in these pages. Mr. Smith 

 advocated close and careful pruning; he 

 would treat a tree on the same principle as a 

 grape vine, aiming at leaving only as much 

 bearing wood as the tree should carry; in 

 this way also, thinning of the fruit itself 

 would be unnecessary. 



He would not plant too closely. He 

 thought 18 or 20 feet apart not too far, be- 

 cause in such case the tree would extend 

 over more area and yield more fruit. As an 

 illustration, he instanced a Quackenbos plum 

 tree at Mr. W. M. Orr's place at Fruitland, 

 which was given plenty of area and had 



reached a fine size. More than once this one 

 tree had yielded thirty baskets of fruit. 



THINNING PUUIT. 



MR. E. D. Smith fully endorsed the d- 

 vice so often given in this journal 

 about thinning fruit, especially in the case of 

 over-loaded trees of peaches. For ex- 

 ample, in an orchard of eighty Triumph 

 trees, four years old, he had a very 

 thrifty growth. The trees were over- 

 loaded with fruit, but he left them hang- 

 ing until after the " June drop," which 

 thinned them considerably. Still there were 

 about one thousand peaches on each tree. 

 Now, 80 three-layer (or two-inch) peaches 

 would fill a twelve-quart basket, and five 

 baskets of fruit was a full crop for a four- 

 year-old peach tree. He therefore, for the 

 sake of experiment, selected two trees as 

 nearly alike as possible, leaving one unthin- 

 ned, and reducing the number of peaches on 

 the other from 1,000 to about 400. Off this 

 tree he sold four baskets No. i peaches at 

 60 cents each, and one basket of No. 2 at p 

 cents, making the total proceeds from the 

 thinned tree $2.80. 



From the unthinned tree he took seven 

 baskets of fruit, but it was useless stuff that 

 did not sell for enough to pay cost of hand- 

 ling and baskets. Besides, the limbs were 

 broken down and split by the over crop, and 

 the tree itself so stunted that it was at least 

 three years in recovering itself. 



What did the thinning cost you? 



The expense was no more than it would 

 be to pick them later when more mature. 

 They must be picked anyway. I estimated 

 that it would cost about one cent a basket, 

 or five cents a tree to do the work ; but, by 

 judicious pruning a great deal of this work 

 of thinning would be avoided. 



When would you spray, if you could only 

 spray once? 



Just before the buds open, was the re- 

 sponse, with Bordeaux, or possibly with the 



