STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 1 15 



giving his words exactly — this proves that we need a larger per- 

 centage of potash than we are getting at the present time, and 

 with the prospect that we are going to get about one, next year, 

 we don't know what we are going to face, if that is so. I don't 

 know what the experience of others will be, but I have a strong 

 feeling — haven't proven it — that with my trees I want a good 

 per cent of potash in the fertilizer. 



Question. If potatoes respond to potash, does it hold that 

 trees will ? 



Dr. Twitchell : No. I say I haven't proved it. I can't 

 state that, as a fact, but I have that feeling with trees I have 

 treated in different ways I have got better results — that does not 

 prove, because I do not understand all the conditions which 

 surround the individual trees. 



Prof. Hedrick : Mr. Chairman, I may state we are just clos- 

 ing an experiment on fertilizers in the apple orchard. This is 

 the twentieth year we have applied fertilizer to an apple orchard 

 in Geneva, New York. The check trees are yielding this twen- 

 tieth year, and have yielded every one of the nineteen previous 

 years just as much fruit as the trees we fertilize, except in the 

 case of nitrogen applied as stable manure, and we don't know 

 in that case whether it is the nitrogen or the humus. I wouldn't 

 say that from what has happened there that is what would hap- 

 pen in Maine. But those are the conditions. An analysis of our 

 soil shows us that the top foot of soil has potash enough for an 

 apple tree bearing twenty bushels to the tree, to last 964 years, 

 and phosphorus to last 450 years, enough nitrogen to last 

 something over 100 years. Ours is a rather heavy clay soil. We 

 published the results from this orchard five years ago, when 

 we had been applying fertilizers fifteen years, and fruit grow- 

 ers in New York, very generally, especially in case of clay soils, 

 are not now fertilizing. But we think the problem is to make 

 available the potash and the acid phosphate and the nitrogen 

 that are in the soil, rather than to buy fertilizer, though we do 

 have an increase by the use of stable manure. But, as I have 

 said, I do not know whether it is the nitrogen or the humus. 

 We are repeating this experiment on fourteen orchards in differ- 

 ent parts of the state on different soils, but you cannot tell any- 

 thing about experiments until they have run four or five years, 

 and ten years is better. Some of these fourteen orchards that 



