52 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the moisture in the ground through the fall when the young 

 fruit sets, and the result is you will get a good crop of fruit 

 buds and you give the trees vitality to set the fruit, and the 

 result, as has been demonstrated in my experience many times, 

 is a good crop of fruit. So, in that respect, my plan is revolu- 

 tionary. It is directly opposite to the practice of what the pro- 

 fessors teach. 



Now my plan is also a very cheap plan. We are told that it 

 is necessary to cultivate in the spring. If I was a nursery man 

 and was selling trees, and w^anted to grow large trees, I should 

 certainly cultivate in the spring, but with the fruit grower it is 

 not wood that you want, it is fruit. W'hat we want is to give 

 the trees strength and vitality while they are forming the fruit 

 buds, and that is where I claim my practice helps. I think 

 somewhere at Cornell perhaps, and I don't know but what it 

 was Professor Beach, through the use of a microscope, has 

 shown that along in June you can commence to discover the 

 new fruit buds or the elements going into those buds that form 

 the fruit. The fruit begins to form in June. The trees are 

 reproducing, and I claim it is good sense if we are growing 

 fruit to stimulate those fruit buds through the fall. You want 

 to get a good strong fruit bud. If you want to get a strong 

 set of fruit you must have strong fruit buds in order to do it. 

 Now there is another advantage to it. 



By having my grass in the orchard that way, I haven't got 

 to stop in the spring to attend to the orchard, except to spray 

 or something like that. When I go out onto my farm in the 

 spring, I have got a lot of other work I want to do, and I don't 

 want any more than I can avoid, and by having my grass 

 growing in the orchard it gives me a lot of spare time so that 

 I can grow a crop of strawberries or corn or early potatoes, 

 while that grass is growing in the orchard. 



To the man that is on a farm and who is paying for his farm 

 that means a good deal, because you can devote your labors to 

 something else. Now all this time your grass is taking out 

 some of the excess moisture, which is just what you want, and 

 then along in July when you get the work out on your farm 

 well enough along so that you can attend to it, then you can go 

 in there with your mowing machine and cut this grass and 

 place it around over the roots. 



