14 



the trees and see how the fruit was coming along. I v.'eiit 

 about the first of July, when the moisture content was get- 

 ting low in the soil, and it was very interesting to note the 

 condition of those trees. That man, under his system of 

 carrying on the mulch system, was getting the balance just 

 &s even as you could possibly get anything in an orchard : he 

 v/as fertilizing very little every year into the mulch, and 

 that conserved the moisture through the first part of the 

 season, and his trees made a splendid growth, cieveloped 

 iiandsome foliage and bore almost annually — a great per- 

 centage of the trees had the annual habit. He had coa- 

 linued this system for 10 years. 



After he secured his hay crop, he would go to a meadow 

 a little distance off, take some low grade material and haul 

 it up to these trees and mulch them, and they would mature 

 a splendid crop. He had lived up to that system year in 

 and year out until the trees had gotten into this habit of 

 annual bearing. 



Again we had, a few years past, a five year orchard 

 contest in Maine. The orchards were set in 1910, if I am 

 not mistaken, and judged in 1914, at the close of the grow- 

 ing season. 



A man could set out nearly any variety he wanted in 

 entering the contest; he could set out year old trees or two- 

 year old trees, as he saw fit, and there were nearly 170 or- 

 chards set, but at the judging time, by the process of elimi- 

 nation and otherMHse, the number was reduced to about 70 

 orchards to be judged, and it was my pleasure to be one of 

 the judges and go over the State and note the conditions 

 under which these young orchards had been produced, and 

 note their condition especially toward bearing, and there 

 vras one very interesting case that I wlant to tell you about. 

 We came to one farm where there were three orchard- 

 ists in the contest, the proprietor, his wife and his sister, 

 Avho lived on the farm. Two of these orchards were under 

 cultivation and had been fertilized very slightly, planting 

 potatoes between the trees. The trees had come along very 



