January, '14] FERTILIZERS IN CULTIVATED ORCHARD. 5 



statement given in the opening remarks of this introduction, viz., 

 that the only safe information is a home test. 



SIMILAR INVESTIGATIONS ELSEWHERE. 



Since we have noted that up to date the results of investi- 

 gations on the fertilization of apple orchards do not agree we give 

 a brief resume of the leading work on the subject. While the 

 problem discussed in this bulletin is as much a study of the 

 results of cultivation as it is the results of fertilizer treatments, 

 yet the latter is uppermost in the minds of so many investigators 

 that special attention is here called to the results obtained else- 

 where and their bearing on the problem. Of the experiments 

 here noted only one report results contradictory to those recorded 

 by the writer. We are here drawing a clear line between orchards 

 in sod that have been fertilized and those under cultivation. 

 Investigations seem to warrant this distinction. 



THE WOBURN EXPERIMENT. 



Some experimental work conducted in England at the Wobum 

 Experimental Fruit Farm and reported in the fourth and fifth 

 reports of that Station shows no effect from the annual applica- 

 tion of manures or commercial fertilizers to an orchard under 

 cultivation for a period of fourteen years. The fact that returns 

 from the application of fertilizers in a cultivated orchard were 

 not superior to returns from good cultivation is significant in this 

 connection. 



The following summary after eight years and the conclusions 

 unchanged at the end of fourteen years are of interest : ' ' Neither 

 moderate nor heavy dressing of dung or artificial [fertilizers], 

 nor of both combined, had any appreciable effect on any feature 

 of the trees nor on the crops from them. The total effect did not 

 amount to 5 per cent and even that effect was very doubtful. 



' ' The only exception was in the case of nitrate applied in the 

 early or late summer which in several seasons produced a good 

 effect. 



" In a lighter and poorer soil the results obtained indicate that 

 manures will there have a more positive action." 



THE MASSACHUSETTS EXPERIMENT.* 



In ^Massachusetts a fertilizer test was conducted in an orchard 

 of Gravensteins, Baldwins, Roxbury Russets, and Rhode Island 

 Greenings for fifteen years. The trees were planted in 1890 and 

 cultivated for five years. From 1895 till 1910 the trees were in 

 sod and the following treatments of fertilizers were applied to 

 the various plots : 



♦Manuring an Apple Orchard. 22d Annual Report Mass. Agri. Exper. Sta., Part II, 1910. 



