8 



Another gave as his reasons for not cultivating;; that his 

 orchard was small and located near the house where culti- 

 vating would spoil the looks of his grounds. He would un- 

 doubtedly have obtained better results by cultivating. Still 

 another left his orchard in sod for the main and' dug up 

 around each tree every svunmer applying stable manure and 

 some form of commercial fertilizer. This in a measure 

 combines both systems, getting some of the benefits of 

 cultivation at small cost. Another found that after tv/o 

 or three years of cultivation his trees made too vigorous 

 v/ood growth, so seeded his orchard down and left it in sod 

 to check the rapid v^ood developement. Thus his was also 

 a combined system, receiving practically all the benefits 

 of cultivation. It must be borne in mind, however, that 

 not many old trees which require a system of renovating (St-"-*- 

 strong and virile enough to allow of such a method of 

 manageiuent , although there undoubtedly are conditions iihere , 

 as this man states, ''cultivation can be overdone''. -Another 

 man got "very satisfactory results from the sod mulch method" . 

 It is evident, hov/ever, that he never tried the tillage 

 method, and the chances are that, had he done so, his results 

 would have been much more satisfactory. It is interesting to 

 note that of the seven who used the sod mulch method only one 

 was decidedly for it. He tried both systems and his results 

 proved much more satisfactory in the case of the sod than in 

 the case of tillage. 



All eight of the men who favored tillage were emphatically 

 in favor of it. There seemed to be no possible doubt in their 

 minds as to which was the better system. One man v/rites. 



