TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 



23.^ 



the tree. The roots will go where the plant food is, and you 

 have got to gradually work them down, and that is where 

 you get the advantage by continuous cultivation — you keep 

 the roots down to about such a depth. The roots will go 

 where they can get plant food, and the plant food should be 

 where it will be available to the tree. If you work the plant 

 food down so that the roots naturally go down after it then 

 you have no roots up near the top of the ground. 



A Member : In the dehorning process where you have 

 an orchard set in sod, is it absolutely necessary that you should 

 dehorn and break up the sod-land the same year? 



President Rogers : No, it is not. I should prefer to 

 take one at a time. If I had a tree that had not been trimmed 

 thoroughly, why, I would do my pruning, perhaps, this year. 

 If it was pretty bad, and the tree was almost ready to die, I 

 would do some pruning this year and some the next, because 

 I do not think it would have the strength to withstand it all 

 at once. It would be too much of a shock. 



A AIember : Question five, please. 



President Rogers : "What is the best treatment for a 

 fairly productive Baldwin orchard forty years old that has 

 been in sod and pasture for the past thirty years?"' That is 

 right in the same line as this question we have been discus- 

 sing. Professor Gulley, can you answer that, or bring out 

 anything new? 



Professor Gullev : Mr. President, I think you practi- 

 cally answered that just now. There is no reason why an 

 orchard of that kind cannot be improved and made more pro- 

 ductive, but you have got to start the work right. The only 

 way to do is to break up the land and stir up the soil in some 

 shape. You have got to give it cultivation. I do not think 

 any particular system is essential, because you can do it in a 

 dozen different ways and be successful. It will undoubtedly 

 want something in the way of thinning and trimming, and if 

 you are going to break it up, you have got to put something 

 back into the soil. It is a help to have something in the way 



