THIRTF.RXTH AXXUAL MEETING. 



49 



bcg'an fifteen years ago with his young orchard. He has an 

 older orchard, which has been worked for forty years, but he did 

 not follow the mulch system there. 



He commenced his young orchard by planting the sod ; the 

 field was an old pasture. He planted in the sod, and dug 

 large holes, three feet across. The holes were dug in the fall or 

 winter, whenever he could work. He planted the trees very 

 early in the spring and they were put in in good shape. When 

 they were first planted, he put cinders around them to keep 

 mice away. In addition to that he put straw and grass, or 

 any other material he could find. The soil between the trees 

 was not touched. He did not plough ; he has never put a 

 plough into that field since the trees were planted. He allowed 

 the grass to grow. At first he cut and made hay out of it for 

 two or'three years ; 1)ut finally, he concluded it was not the best 

 course to pursue. The land was rich enough to grow good trees, 

 and he decided to take no hay from the field, nothing but apples. 

 And he has kept his resolution. He has put back more than 

 he took aw^a}' in the way of mulching. He has now gotten the 

 orchard pretty well mulched and in good condition. That is 

 about the sum and substance of his operations. 



I became interested in this matter some ten or twelve years ago^ 

 and I watched Mr. \'ergon and Mr. Hitchings and a few others, 

 and it seemed to be worth while to carry out an experiment 

 along those lines at the Station. \\> had some soil there that 

 was pretty poor, soil that was not rich enough to raise an 

 average crop, without fertilizers. But we started to plant our 

 land without fertilizer. The ground was laid out and divided 

 up into two parts. ( )ne-half has been cultivated ever since 

 the trees were planted ; the other one-half we planted as Mr. 

 V^ergon did. But we made one sub-division. In the cultivated 

 part, we are growing cover crops each year, and on the other 

 part we arc not growing anything. On the part that is not 

 grass, one-half were mulched from the sod and one-half were 

 not. So }'ou see, we are trying- quite an experiment there. 



Xow the best trees in the lots, those that have made the 



best growth, are the ones that have been mulched, cultivated 



and cover crops. One season, the mulched trees were a little 



better, and another the cultivated and cover crops were a little 



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