STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



lOI 



TABLE III.— INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZATION AND CULTURAL METHODS ON 

 GROWTH. (YOUNG ORCHARD.) 

 (Av;erage increase in trunk girth, first five years, Expt. 337.) 



Tbeatment. 



Average 

 increase. 



Gains over normal 

 growths. 



1 Check (unfertilized) 



2 Nitrogen and phosphate. . . 



3 Nitrogen and phosphate. . . 



4 Check 



diphosphate and potash. . . . 



6 Complete fertilizer 



7 Check 



8 Manure 



9 Lime (and fertilizer, 1912). 



10 Check 



11 Tillage and cover crops. . . 



12 Tillage and intercrops 



13 Clean tillage 



14 Sod-mulch 



Inches. 

 3.28 

 3.78 

 3.51 

 3.47 

 3.94 

 4.73 

 4.47 

 4.57 

 4.61 

 3.91 

 3.38 

 3.60 

 3.72 

 4.32 



Inches. 



.44 

 .11 



.14 

 .60 



.32 



.58 



.28 



.13 

 .72 



Per cent. 



13.17 

 3.24 



3.68 

 14.53 



7.53 

 14.39 



7.78 



3.62 

 20.00 



Here again the trees receiving the mulch are showing decid- 

 edly the best growth, though their advantage is not quite so 

 great as in Experiment 331. The cover crop in this case is 

 proving slightly better than clean tillage alone, probably because 

 the relative importance of moisture and plant food seems to 

 be reversed here. But the advantage on the cover crop plat is 

 still too small to show any profit. The intercrop here has been 

 vegetables, — chiefly potatoes, beans and peas. They show the 

 lowest tree growth of any of the cultural methods, but their 

 deficiency is very slight and it is probably chiefly due to their 

 location, which has been somewhat wetter than that of the 

 others. This has now been corrected by tile drainage. 



As already intimated, the conservation of moisture seems to 

 be of less importance than plant-food in this orchard. This is 

 not surprising to one familiar with this Volusia type of soil and 

 also with local conditions. Even at that, however, the response 

 to fertilization shown in the first ten plats is somewhat greater 

 than we had expected in so young an orchard, and in a similar 

 experiment at the College this response is not dupHcated. The 

 latter result is more natural in the case of young trees for sev- 

 eral reasons. The trees have been making their particular 

 demands for a relatively short time, most of the food of the 

 leaves is annually returned to the soil, the mineral content of 

 wood is rather low, and in reality comparatively little of it is 

 being formed in a young orchard. For these reasons we usually 



