TWENTY.FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 



73 



pening, it is plowed under — a heavy chain being needed to pull 

 the corn under. Immediately a cover crop is sown. This may 

 be simply rye or turnips, or some of the mixtures recom- 

 mended where a leguminous plant is included. Personally, 

 I am not ver\' familiar with this method of procedure, but it 

 was my pleasure to examine several young orchards this fall 

 where the system had been used, and better cover crops on 

 a young orchard I never saw before. 



Returns From Young Orchards. 



Before leaving the subjects of planting and caring for 

 young orchards, some of you might like tO' know what re- 

 turns New York fruit growers are getting from their young 

 apple orchards. We are not making independent fortunes 

 from apples set four and five years. Neither is it necessary 

 for us to wait fifteen years for our first commiercial crop. 

 We are getting apples from three-year-old trees — sometimes 

 as man}- as thirty or forty. At five years a few have report- 

 ed a crop equal to a barrel. At seven years it is not uncom- 

 mon to have trees producing a barrel of fruit, even a barrel 

 of Baldv/ins. But the average gro-wer is ncvt doing that. At 

 nine years, however, our trees may be considered as being to 

 a bearing age. Some of our New York men may think, and 

 doubtless will, that I am placing this age too high. There 

 are exceptions, but for the rank and file, commercial crops 

 need not be looked for much before the trees have been out 

 nine years. This is for the average varieties, Wagener, Ren 

 Davis, Yellow Transparent, and some others will bear sooner. 



The following is taken from a letter from Mr. Samuel 

 Fraser and gives very definitely some interesting facts con- 

 cerning the production of apples from young trees: 



'Tn regard to early bearing. I can give you individual 

 trees if they will help. One Mcintosh four years old bore 

 fifty apples in 1911. It was a top-worked tree, too. having 

 been budded. A Baldwin four years planted, not top- 

 worked, bore seventy, and other trees bore twenty to thirty. 

 At Avon, Mr. M. E. Ross, agent of Mr. Herbert Wads- 



