36 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



any hay growing in the orchard, and there are advantages in 

 a cultivated orchard. We shall practice thorough cultivation 

 from early spring until about July first, when we will sow a 

 cover crop. 



Another factor of success, and one altogether too often 

 neglected, is the matter of fertilizing. I believe one reason 

 why the Western apple grower raises such handsome fruit is 

 because he is growing his fruit on new land, which is full of 

 plant food; whereas much of our land is poor and worn out. 

 I am obliged to admit that this is one of my theories, but it 

 is one I firmly believe in. Last year I saw an interesting fact 

 which bore out this theory of mine. We had, on one of the 

 farms we bought, a small Baldwin orchard, and across the 

 road from it were the buildings and a few scattering trees on 

 the same farm. We fertilized the orchard well (and inciden- 

 tally, we got a crop this year that more than paid for the 

 land and the fertilizer we put on it), but the apples were not 

 particularly attractive. But one tree across the road, which 

 grew by the side of the hen yard, and where the people 

 dumped their ashes from the kitchen stove, bore Baldwin ap- 

 ples that looked no more like the apples in the orchard across 

 the road than our average fruit looks like the Western product. 

 The apples from this one tree were highly colored and very 

 attractive. Now, I am not saying that this difference was due 

 to the continued and high fertilization the single tree received, 

 but I believe that it was, and that a generous application of 

 fertilizer will do much to improve the appearance of our fruit. 

 At least, we intend to make fertilizing a prominent feature of 

 our program. I would not like to tell you what our bill for 

 fertilizer was last year, nor that it will be larger this year. 



Last year we used sulphate of potash and basic slag. We 

 applied generally over the field 400 to 500 pounds per acre of 

 basic slag and 200 to 300 pounds of high-grade sulphate of 

 potash. Then besides that, to our small trees that we set out 

 last year, we gave one ounce of nitrate of soda per tree, using 

 thorough cultivation in the plantation all the time, and our 

 trees made a growth of from a foot and a half to three feet this 



