I04 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The sound fruit and windfalls of each plot or block 

 should be measured and the color compared. The test should 

 run for a number of years. Nothing- decisive will probably 

 be determined under three years, for the fertilizers must af- 

 fect at least one year's wood before making much change in 

 yield or quality. At the end of five years you will know 

 something positive about your land and your trees and will 

 have a better guide to the use of fertilizers on orchards than 

 any book or farm institute enthusiast can give you. 



This experiment leaves it uncertain whether the nitrogen 

 of the cover crop was or was not a benefit to the trees. 



In a later bulletin,^ Hedrick reports the results of an ex- 

 periment with fertilizers in an apple orchard continued for 

 15 "years. The several fertilizers, stable manure, acid phos- 

 phate, acid phosphate and potash, and a complete fertilizer 

 containing abundance of nitrogen were put on yearly in "tre- 

 mendous" doses, underneath the branches of the trees, rather 

 than broadcast over the whole orchard. There were three plots 

 for comparison which received no fertilizer. 



The soil was a heavy clay loam, overlying a still heavier 

 clay. The variety was the Rome, top-worked on Ben Davis. 



Each year the whole orchard was tilled till late in July 

 and then sown to a non-leguminous cover crop. The conclu- 

 sion of fifteen years' work and observation is that there is 

 no difiference between the several plots, whether fertil- 

 ized or not. Growth of trees, yield of fruit, as well as its 

 color, flavor, and keeping- quality are all alike. The money 

 spent for fertilizers in this orchard has been wasted, as far as 

 the profit from the trees is concerned. 



An experiment in Pennsylvania'' begun in 1907 in 

 eleven orchards having altogether two thousand two hundred 

 trees, ranging from ten to thirty-seven years old on 

 nearly as many types of soil, with twelve varieties 

 of apples. Whether tillage was used in the experi- 

 ments with fertilizers is not evident from the account. The 



s New York State Station Bulletin 339. 

 * Pennsylvania Station Bulletin 100 



