THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL SESSION 
163 
hot weather is extremely slow and never interferes with other orchard opera- 
tions such as spraying, pruning, and harvesting. The mulch by harvest time 
is usually heavy enough to form a soft mat upon which even the most tender 
pears may drop and not be injured. The owner of one pear orchard I have 
in mind was unfortunate in not being able to get his crop harvested before 
a wind storm and supposed every pear blown off was rendered worthless. 
He was agreeably surprised after the storm to find them absolutely unbruised. 
This is even more true with apples than with pears, in fact, one apple orchard 
that I know has no loss from wind falls because falling fruit is never in- 
jured. Another value of the Hairy vetch is that it is possible to turn hogs 
in on it early in November or December and feed all Winter long except when 
the snow is too deep and they neither harm it nor the soil during the Winter. 
The late Fall, early Winter and early Spring growth affords an abundance 
of tender, rich feed for hogs. 
Even the methods of handling the young orchards have materially 
changed until now, a rather large percentage of them are being intercropped 
for a twofold reason: First, to cut down the very excessive costs of pro- 
ducing the orchard; and second, to protect the soil from the burning rays 
of the July and August suns, and to add at least a small amount of humus 
and nitrogen. A rotation of corn, peas and oats, and beans or potatoes has 
been found very practicable in some of the districts while other districts have 
rotated field peas and oats with potatoes. 
In some districts both young and bearing orchards are being seeded 
to alfalfa with the idea of reducing cost of care and production of fruit by 
means of the hay crop. In the young orchards the alfalfa is in strips or 
bands between the rows while in the bearing orchards it is seeded all over the 
land. The amount of hay cut from the orchards is governed entirely by the 
kind of soil, its moisture content and the treatment. The general average 
is a little over four tons per acre, but seven and even eight tons are not 
exceptional yields. 
The Pruning of Orchard Trees. 
With the reaction of less cultivation and the seeding of orchards to mulch 
crops comes the marked tendency to likewise reduce the pruning to a mini- 
mum, not so much because of expense but because many people realize now 
that there is just as much danger of over pruning as there is of under 
pruning, and the probabilities are that previous to now many orchards have 
been pruned too severely for the best good of the fruit crops. Jusft 
where the reaction will lead is as problematic as the result of the grass mulch 
reaction. 
Trees planted and grown as fillers should be pruned only enough during 
their early life to compel the formation of a trunk and branches sufficiently 
strong to bear the loads of fruit. It is much cheaper for the poor man to 
support the weaker limbs than it is to support non-productive trees. 
There has been very little change experienced in the pruning of older 
fruit trees during the past few years, with the possible exceptions of the 
sweet cherry and the peach. The tendency formerly was to prune the sweet 
cherry almost as severely, and at the same time, as an apple tree, and in 
almost the same manner exlcept permit the pyramidal form to a very marked 
