6o STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



but I couldn't. The owner says that is due to cultivation. But 

 then he did say his Spys obhged him to resort to potash in order 

 to get the color on them. This question of feeding the tree, 

 it seems to me, is one of the great problems confronting us, and 

 we must feed where and when it will give the tree the most 

 food and the best results, where we reach the feeding rootlets 

 of the tree in the rapid growing season. 



There are some photographs which I brought on the table, and 

 if you care to look at them they show a bunch of trees which 

 were condemned as worthless two years ago this fall, and 

 where a man was sent to cut them down. I bought the little 

 place a year ago last May and plowed and planted alongside the 

 trees, working up within about eight feet of the trees. This 

 year I applied ten pounds of Fisher's formula fertilizer to those 

 trees. You know that fertilizer is criticized somewhat because 

 of the amount and cost of nitrogen it contains, but for the 

 starting of a neglected tree, I do not know of anything which 

 will give a better wood growth. Those old trees made a wood 

 growth this year of one and a half or two feet, or more, and 

 were covered a few days ago with a very dense, firm foliage. 

 While the other trees around the orchard were dropping their 

 foliage, these leaves held firm up to about the first of Novem- 

 ber, and I don't know how much longer. That fertilizer is, I 

 think, one of the best agents we can use to start an old orchard, 

 to set it in motion, but I think the caution given us, which you 

 Vv'ill find in the report of this Pomological Society last year, in 

 the address by Prof. Hurd, where he emphasizes the use of 

 potash and phosphoric acid, and gives the formula which should 

 be used the second year and thereafter on these same trees, 

 should be carefully observed. 



Next, is the cry for protection. I wonder how many of us 

 are studying that. How many of us are seeking to get the 

 right sprayer to give the most perfect results? How many 

 are studying sprayer construction and the nozzles to be used 

 and formulas to be applied, and are perfecting ourselves by 

 practice in preparing those agents, the insecticides and finigi- 

 cides, so we can go out and do that thorough work that must 

 be done well to protect from the insect pests and fungous dis- 

 eases? I say the orchards are crying for this all over the 

 State of Maine. It isn't alone to be found in the potato crop, 

 but it is also in the orchard. 



