September, 1916 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
One of the many homes 
our Landscape Depart- 
ment has helped to make 
attractive. 
We are now ready to help 
you make your place a 
Beauty Spot. 
A booklet showing places 
we have planned and 
planted is free. 
You want the best varie- 
ties when planting your 
Orchard, Home Grounds 
or Fruit Garden. Our 
catalogue tells you about 
them. 
The Coe, Converse & Edwards Co., Nurserymen, Fort Atkinson, Wis. 
Orchard Winter Injuries. 
(Continued from page 13) 
planting of windbreaks may be 
of some importance, though it is 
usually of secondary value. 
If we briefly review the sys- 
tems of soil management most 
prominently advocated in recent 
years, we find only two of more 
than general interest. The Defi- 
nite Alulch and the Tillage- 
Cover Crop systems with their 
intermediate variations for spec- 
ial conditions are of greatest 
promise. 
The Definite Mulch System, 
as outlined by Professor Stewart 
of the Pennsylvania Station, 
consists essentially in maintain- 
ing sufficient mulch material over 
the root-feeding area in a sod 
orchard to prevent sod growth 
that would compete with the 
tree roots for plant foods in the 
soil. For this system great 
advantages in moisture conser- 
vation, fruit size and color, 
vigor of growth and longer grow- 
ing season are claimed, and with 
probably good foundation. It 
covers our cultural-preventive 
requirements very well except in 
one particular— that of wood 
maturity — for the prolongation 
of the growing season is very apt 
to result disastrously in a climate 
such as this. 
In our Tillage-Cover Crop 
System on the other hand we 
can secure definite permanent 
results in tree vigor and size of 
fruit, with possibly a slight 
deficiency as to color. But in 
this system we can practically 
control the length of the growing 
season and thus the maturity of 
the wood as well as secure 
adequate cover protection in 
most instances. The practice is 
now no doubt familiar to most of 
our growers, it being followed by 
at least 75% of the larger com- 
mercial orchardisfs under various 
climatic conditions throughout 
the country. The method of 
thorough early summer culti- 
vation, sowing of a cover crop by 
the last of July and spring plow- 
ing is thus evidently most gen- 
erally advisable for this State 
and it becomes more a question 
of which is the best cover crop 
to be used under given con- 
ditions. This the grower 
must largely determine for him- 
self by a comparison of their 
various qualities and the special 
needs of his orchard. In the 
intelligent following of such a 
system the problem of winter 
injuries in orchards will soon 
become of much less importance. 
J. E. Richardson, Jr. 
University of Wisconsin. 
January, 1916. 
Keep suckers off fruit trees and 
vegetables, they take the 
strength of the plant and retard 
the development of the fruit. 
