STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 47 



TALK ABOUT THE EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS. 



Prof. W. ]\L MuNSON, Orono. 



As representing the Experiment Station I don't know \\'hether 

 I better say very much about this question of orchard fertiliza- 

 tion, or not. The experiment stations have apparently been 

 "sat down" upon, somewhat, with reference to the use of fer- 

 tilizers. I may say this, however, do not think for an instant 

 that any experiment station in this country would say that nitro- 

 gen is not necessary for fruit trees or any other plants. Nitro- 

 gen is one of the fundamental elements of plant food. Trees 

 must have it just as much as any other plants. So please don't 

 "get the idea from what has been said that experiment stations 

 have not been in favor of using any nitrogen on fruit trees, for 

 most emphatically they do favor it. 



One other point I cannot refrain from referring to. It was 

 mv privilege — I don't know whether it was the particular speci- 

 mens which Mr. Pope has upon the table down stairs o* not, — 

 but it was my privilege, as I was looking over the orchard this 

 fall, to make selection of a great many of those very fine speci- 

 mens of Talman Sweets, and I may say just confidentially that 

 most of them came from those plots where the Experiment Sta- 

 tion had been working, and not where the Fisher formula, or this 

 new forrnula that we have referred to, was used. Most of them 

 came from those trees which had been fertilized with stable 

 manure and with complete fertilizers, rather than from this new 

 work. 



While speaking of this particular branch of the experimental 

 work in Manchester, I may say that the point that we have in 

 mind there is to demonstrate the fact, if fact it be, that an excess 

 of nitrogen, such as is called for by the Fisher formula, may be 

 unnecessary. Now as has been said, this Fisher formula has 

 been called dynamite ; so we have right by the side of it, on cer- 

 tain experimental plots, put another formula which we may, if 

 you choose, call lyddite, so we will have a grand cannonading 

 a little later comparing the two formula's. I may simply say by 

 way of explanation, this formula we are comparing with it con- 



