STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 59 



plot having had no treatment. The best colored fruits have 

 been found on the wood ashes plot and the poorest colored from 

 the no treatment plot. Director Brooks says: "On the plots 

 having barnyard manure, the fruit has been coarse and ill look- 

 ing and does not sell well, while that on the wood ashes plot 

 is of extra fine color and appearance and is in great demand." 



One of the most interesting points brought out in the Massa- 

 chusetts experiment is the difference in results between the use 

 of muriate and sulphate of potash, the sulphate giving much 

 the better results. This superiority of sulphate might be attrib- 

 uted to the magnesia in the sulphate or to the bad effects of the 

 chlorine accumulating in the soil from the continued use of 

 muriate. 



This experiment has shown without a doubt that on this par- 

 ticular orchard, fertilizer applications have been of great benefit. 

 However, the fact should not be lost sight of, that this was an 

 uncultivated orchard and that the presence of grass growing in 

 the orchard may have profoundly modified the results. In test- 

 ing fertilizers in orchards, one should make his tests on trees 

 alone and not upon trees and grass. That is to say, experimenters 

 who are searching for fundamental facts in orchard fertilization 

 should not hamper their results by using orchards in sod. The 

 farmer who finds that the sod mulch system of orcharding is 

 the most economical one for him to follow is perfectly justified 

 in using fertilizers as a top dressing in his endeavor to find the 

 plant food deficiencies in his orchard. 



The New York Geneva Station has also reported upon an- 

 other experiment in fertilizing apple orchards. This experiment 

 is unique in that all trees involved in the test were of one variety 

 and all had been budded from the same parent tree. The 

 variety used w^as Rome Beauty top worked upon Northern Spy 

 stock. Here again, the Geneva Station reports negative results 

 from the use of fertilizers. However, a careful review of their 

 published data seems to show that at least upon one end of their 

 orchard there was some benefit from the use of potash. The 

 land upon which this orchard was planted was chosen for its 

 supposedly uniformity of soil, but the results published show 

 that the available plant food content of the soil over the entire 

 field was not constant and that apparently one end of the field 

 was deficient in available potash. The uniformity of soil con- 



