January, 1908 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



XV 



to fit the requirements of the case. Some 

 plants require much more water than others. 

 It would never do to let them get really dry. 

 Were this to happen, they would receive a 

 check from which they would be a long time 

 in recovering. A geranium may get so dry 

 at its roots, that its leaves wilt, but give it a 

 fresh supply of water and it straightens up 

 almost immediately, and no bad results follow. 

 But let this happen to a heliotrope, and note 

 the difference. The plant may not die, but 

 it will frequently drop its leaves and you may 

 have to cut it back and renew it almost en- 

 tirely — a process requiring months of time 

 and no little attention. Such results can be 

 prevented if one is enough in love with her 

 plants to study them as she does her children, 

 and vary the treatment given them according 

 to their peculiar habits and requirements. 



THE ACTION OF GRASS ON 

 FRUIT TREES 



THE reports of the Woburn Experiment 

 Fruit Farm near Bedford, England, 

 describing the work of the Duke of 

 Bedford and Spencer U. Pickering, for the 

 years of 1897 to 1905, include accounts of most 

 significant and interesting observations upon 

 the effect of one plant upon another through 

 the apparent intervention of toxic materials. 

 These accounts are worthy of a rather full 

 presentation here. 



The two authors observed, in their report 

 for 1897, that when the soil surrounding 

 their young apple trees was allowed to be 

 occupied by weeds or was sown to grass, 

 the trees very soon showed a much poorer 

 growth than that exhibited by other trees 

 around which the soil had been kept cultivated. 

 The effect was much more pronounced in 

 the case of grass than in that of weeds. In 

 considering the possible causes of this dele- 

 terious effect of the herbage it was pointed 

 out that the grass and w T eeds probably absorb 

 the nutrient materials of the manure, pre- 

 vent the normal aeration of the soil, and pro- 

 mote evaporation from the soil both directly 

 through transpiration and indirectly through 

 preventing cultivation and the formation of 

 the usual dust mulch. In this report the 

 authors attributed the bad effects observed 

 mainly to the last-named cause and pointed 

 out that the greater injurious action of the 

 grass was probably due to the fact that it is 

 perennial and active throughout the year, 

 while the weeds dealt with were largely 

 annuals. 



Three years later, in the report of 1900, 

 the statement was made that about the worst 

 treatment to which a young apple tree could 

 be subjected was that of sowing the surround- 

 ing soil to grass. Trees which were pur- 

 posely improperly planted and afterward 

 entirely neglected exhibited a better growth 

 than did trees surrounded by grass. Normally 

 cultivated trees increased in weight in four 

 years from ten to thirty fold, while those 

 surrounded by grass barely doubled their 

 weight. "Neither weeds alone nor weeds 

 coupled with careless planting and total neg- 

 lect produced such bad effects as the grass." 

 In the yield of fruit the trees surrounded by 

 grass showed a deficiency of 89 per cent., the 

 neglected trees of 82 per cent., and the trees 

 of the weeded plots of 55 per cent, below the 

 normal. The normally green fruit of the 

 trees surrounded by grass, instead of being 

 green when ripe, was either red or practically 

 colorless and of a waxy aspect and was always 

 undersized. The leaves of these trees were 

 deficient in chlorophyll and were shed about 

 two weeks earlier than those of the normally 

 grown trees. 



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