I02 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the fact that certain nutrients added to this soil gave no re- 

 sults must mean that this particular soil contained an abun- 

 dance of the elements added when the experiment begun. 



"The practical application of the information obtained 

 by this experiment is, that the apple grower should not apply 

 manures in quantity until he has obtained some evidence as 

 to what food elements, if any, are needed in his soil. Good 

 evidence in this direction is furnished by the trees themselves. 

 So long as the trees are growing well, adding a fair amount 

 of new wood each year, and producing goods crops of well- 

 colored fruit, it may be taken for granted that they need no 

 additional food from fertilizers. 



"The most important lessons taug'ht by the experiment 

 here recorded are : That an orchard soil may not need pot- 

 ash, phosphoric acid, nor lime, even though the soil may have 

 been cropped a half century ; that in a soil which produces 

 apples of poor color, potash and phosphoric acid may not 

 improve the color; and that the apple does not seem to be as 

 exhaustive of soil fertility as farm crops. The experiment 

 suggests, as well, that to assume without definite knowledge 

 that a tree needs this or that plant food often leads to the 

 waste of fertilizing material ; and that in the matter of fer- 

 tilizing an orchard a fruit grower should experiment for him- 

 self, since an orchard's need of fertilizer can be determined 

 only by the behavior of the trees when supplied with the sev- 

 eral plant foods." 



Another thing I would add, that in this experiment 

 following the use of the fertilizers named. Northern Spy and 

 Roxbury varieties gave an annual increased yield of over 120 

 bushels per acre, while Baldwins and Greenings were not ma- 

 terially helped. This suggests that different varieties may 

 differ greatly in their power to gather the plant food of the 

 soil and therefore may have very different fertilizer require- 

 ments. About this Ave know nothing. 



In a word, the net result of the work was that on a sod 

 orchard cropped 57 years, phosphates and potash did not 



