TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION. 
21 
will find so many others who will fall far below that point that it would be 
better to let the one man go on his way to destruction. The men who have 
bankrupted themselves and ruined their orchards by too thorough cultiva- 
tion are so scarce that we have not yet been able to find them in America, 
and it would hardly be worth while for an experiment station to hold out a 
caution to them. (Laughter.) 
Mr. R. M. Kellogg, Michigan, said he concurred fully in what had been said 
in favor of continuous and thorough cultivation. He recommended thorough 
cultivation early in the season, litter to supply the humus, and the sowing of 
cover crops, preferably oats, to protect the soil during the winter and to 
furnish humus to separate the soil grains of the surface, so as to conserve 
moisture and produce the major part of the growth before the 15th of August. 
He continued: 
“Then, later on, sow oats again or some other cover crop, so that we may 
separate the soil grains as before. In that way you secure your growth 
early in the season, utilizing the most favorable part of the season for the 
growth and the cool fall months for ripening the wood. The exact time at 
which these cover crops can be sown must be governed by the moisture in 
the soil as well as by climatic conditions. I insist that the condition of the 
fruit buds can be governed by these methods with almost mathematical 
accuracy. If the buds are perfectly dormant at the time of freezing, only 
the most intense cold can destroy them ; but if they contain any sap they are 
easily killed. 
“Continuous cultivation binds the vegetable matter of the soil and brings 
the soil grains close together so that the conservation of moisture is rendered 
exceedingly difficult. The great want of the soil today is humus or decayed 
vegetable matter.” 
Prof. YanDeman: Perhaps one of the most notable instances we have of 
the good effects of thorough cultivation is the one of which Mr. Kellogg 
reminded me last evening. I refer to the orchard of Mr. Morrill, at Benton 
Harbor, Mich. Now’, we know that the peach crop of the United States; this 
year, is a failure except in California and in a very few orchards here and 
there in the Eastern States. Mr. Morrill is one of those who have been suc- 
cessful. He is rejoicing in a crop of ten or twelve thousand bushels of 
peaches this year, which he is selling for five, six and seven dollars a bushel. 
This is all the result of his thorough cultivation. I am speaking from actual 
knowledge, for I have been over his orchard, every acre of it. He has culti- 
vated it from the time it was planted until the present time, more thoroughly 
perhaps than nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of the 
gardens of this country are cultivated. Walking over it is just like walking 
over a feather bed. The gentlemen here who have been over that ground 
will bear me witness that they never saw a piece of ground better cultivated 
than that. The result is, this year, that those trees did not winter kill, their 
fruit buds did not winter kill, because they were in such a good state of vigor. 
And that is why Mr. Morrill has a fruit crop this year, when others have 
failed. 
Prof. Taft: I have a number of photographs of Mr. Morrill’s orchard and 
also some fruit from tit. They will be on the tables in the adjoining exhibition 
room. I have also a memorandum of his sales, showing that he is receiving 
$7.50 for some of his peaches, wholesale. 
' Prof. Alwood: I know that culture will help to restore plants that have 
been injured by climatic conditions, but will culture prevent winter killing? 
