198 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



MR. MILLS. Attached to the drill so that I do not need to do again 

 at great expense when I might do it all in one turn. 



MR. ROEDING. Then, if the ground should become dry after you 

 have planted the seed, you irrigate? 



MR. MILLS. We irrigate through those furrows. We irrigate the 

 soil first, cultivate it as moist as we can, drill in our seed, at the same 

 time furrowing it out; the seed then germinates and grows six, eight, 

 ten inches at times before we have to irrigate. Last year we did not 

 have to irrigate. The rains came in beautiful showers and the cover 

 crops matured for us without irrigation. This year we had to turn 

 on the water just ten days ago. 



MR. ROEDING. Have you ever been troubled with gum diseases 

 from the fact that the ground.was closely covered with the cover crops ? 



MR. MILLS. No ; we can not get the cover crops anywhere near the 

 trunks of the trees. The trees are ten and twelve years old, and the 

 cover crop is put in, of course, on the outside of the branches of the 

 trees both ways, so that we will cover every foot of the orchard that is 

 available for the cover crop. We have, however, some gum disease — I 

 am happy to say very little; I am happy to say that we are able to 

 control it; that on thousands of acres it would be hard to find fifty 

 trees. However, you will find it, Mr. Roeding, down south in tre- 

 mendous quantities. I know orchards in which there is not a tree that 

 is free from the gum disease, because the orchards really need drainage. 

 If they were mine I would put drains in, tiles, and draw off the water. 



MR. ROEDING. It is a fact that a light soil will not be as much 

 liable to gum disease as a heavy soil? 



MR. MILLS. I am quite sure you are right. 



DR. SHERMAN. Did you ever inoculate the vicia as you do the 

 cow pea? 



MR. MILLS. No. The species of bacteria in our soils that are 

 natural and that inoculate the burr clover are the same that work on 

 the vicias— all varieties of vicias. The species that work on the cow pea 

 are not in our soils, and we have had to inoculate for them. 



DR. SHERMAN. I had it in two places last year and did well in 

 one and not in the other. 



MR. MILLS. The cow pea? 



DR. SHERMAN. No, the vicia. 



MR. MILLS. If your soil is devoid of humus you will have very few 

 bacteria in it. Go to another orchard where you grew successfully a 

 crop and take a few sacks of soil and spread it over your orchard. 

 Throw it over another soil before putting in your cover crop and you 

 are inoculated. The first year I inoculated the soil and I inoculated 

 the seed with bacterial matter that I got from the Department of 

 Agriculture at Washington, and I got good results from it. 



