REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GARDENS. 285 



that time. My orchards have beeu fertilized with boue tankage 

 and muriate of potash, using the tankage in the fall and the 

 potash in the spring. Last spring I used about eight hundred 

 pounds of sulphate of potash per acre. Of tankage I used from 

 one to two tons per acre according to the age of the trees. 



The trees have all made a satisfactory growth and bid fair now 

 to give us more fruit next year. 



We are just spreading on the tankage again, my brother and I 

 using nearly thirty tous this fall. We intend to do our part to 

 the best of our knowledge and if the chief of the weather bureau 

 prescribes the right kind of a winter we hope to be able to invite 

 the Committee again to see some more Peaches. 



Very truly yours, 



W. D. Hinds, 



Excelsior Fruit Farm, Toivnsend, Mass. 



Statement of Mk. A. J. Hinds. 



John G. Barker, Esq. : 



Dear Sir: — In compliance with j'our request I herewith give a 

 brief synopsis of my experience in the Peach industry in Town- 

 send, Mass. 



I set my first two hundred and fifty trees in the spring of 1888, 

 eight hundred in the spring of 1891, and a few each spring since, 

 having now about two thousand two hundred trees. In 1893 I 

 had from the first two hundred and fifty trees about two hundred 

 and fifty baskets of fruit. I had about one thousand trees in 

 bearing this year, from which I took two thousand five hundred 

 baskets of fruit, and sold it at very fair prices. 



From the start I have held to the clean culture method from 

 early spring until about the 15th of August, and until the third 

 year have usually sown winter rye at the last cultivation, plough- 

 ing it in in the spring. I have also used considerable quantities 

 of meadow hay for mulching every season. For fertilizers I have 

 used scrap and bone (tankage) and both muriate and sulphate of 

 potash and wood ashes. I have used the above in varying quan- 

 tities according to the present conditions of the trees and the 

 previous condition of the land, but sufficient to produce a vigorous 

 growth, necessitating thorough pruning twice each season to keep 



