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iwailable nitrogen are present, the color of the fruit is not 

 always satisfactory-. Things that make for slow growth 

 make for better color, and for that reason people will favor 

 the sod mulch method, because it checks, to some extent, 

 the growth of a tree, so they obtain better color. Large 

 amounts of nitrogen and good color do not run in the same 

 direction; nevertheless, if we could supply large amounts of 

 i^.jtrogen early in the season and then check it, even though 

 we had a large amount of nitrogen, if we had plenty of 

 available phosphoric acid and potash, we might produce 

 fruit that is well colored, and for that reason you will find 

 that a great many fruit growers who are using cover crops 

 in their orchards prefer to employ a mixture of a legume 

 iind non-legume; for instance, Professor Blake, our horti- 

 culturist, says that he found a mixture of oats and winter 

 \'etch, or a mixture of barley and winter vetch very satis- 

 factory. The oats make a very rapid growth in mid-sum- 

 mer. They dry out the soil and they check nitrification ; 

 that means they check the supply of available nitrogen to 

 the crop and they force the ripening of the wood and the 

 color of the fruit. Now then there is something to be said 

 about certain materials v/hich are fertilizers in one sense 

 only, compounds like manganese, copper or zinc, especially; 

 as to the manganese, there has been some very interesting 

 work done in France, a very small amount of material, a few 

 pounds per acre, practically, seem to act as a stimulant in 

 fcome way, producing growth, and that has a bearing on the 

 t'olor of the fruit, but that matter has not gone beyond the 

 experimental stage. I do not feel in a position to give you 

 iinything definite on that. 



MR. AVINSOR: In Rhode Island, a number of our 

 growers have been sowing barley with clover and barley 

 flone and it has been sowed in soil that is in a high state of 

 cultivation and fertilization, and the barley plants, after 

 coming up, would seem to damp off, that is, they would turn 

 \ellow after getting up two or three inches high. I would 

 like to know the reason ? 



