of course, we want those trees to come forward rapidly, for 

 the sooner we get them into bearing, the sooner we will get 

 an income out of them. 



THE CHAIRMAN : I might state a little experience I 

 had with a 25-year-old orchard that might be of interest right 

 along this line. It was a combination of cultivation and sod 

 method. We started in to renovate them. They hadn't 

 grown as rapidly as they should have. The first year we 

 plowed the orchard right up to the trunks of the trees and 

 then gradually let up on the plowing until we had sod under 

 the trees out as far as the branches extended, and between 

 the rows where the sun came in we used a spring tooth har- 

 row. That seemed to give us the best results on that particu- 

 lar soil. The apples remained about uniform for a series of 

 years after that treatment was given them. They gave good 

 crops right along. 



MR. C. B. PRATT of New York: For a good many 

 years I have been especially interested in this matter be- 

 cause I have some 9000 trees, and especially for my young 

 orchard I have been watching the effects of alfalfa, and at the 

 present time I am experimenting with about 23 acres with 

 trees that are five and six years of age. I found that with 

 the alfalfa those trees seem to be growing just as healthfully 

 and vigorously as trees where cultivated. 



I have a friend up near Rochester who has carried on an 

 experiment for a number of years in clean cultivation with a 

 cover crop, one in timothy, and another in alfalfa. The dif- 

 ference between the clean cultivation and cover crop is that 

 the trees are about two years older in the other orchards than 

 in the timothy and alfalfa, but the alfalfa trees are catch- 

 ing up with the clean cultivation. 



I think there is no difference, but the trees in timothy 

 are very much stunted, but he is keeping this as an experi- 

 ment. 



I think the whole question of cover cultivation depends 

 a great deal upon the nature of the soil. Mr. Barclay's or- 

 chards are in a light soil, and I think there the cultivation 



