HOJA 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 24, 1903 
*1 PER YEAR, 
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THAT PENNSYLVANIA ORCHARD AGAIN. 
HOW TO BRACE IT UP. 
J. H. Hale Talks Cultivation. 
If the orchard was mine I should tackle it this 
coming Spring with a broadcast application of some 
good fertilizer; stable manure if I had plenty of it; 
if not, fine ground bone, potash in its cheapest and 
most available form, and a moderate amount of ni¬ 
trogen. I would then put in a stiff, steady team and 
a good strong plow and break it up thoroughly to the 
depth of four or five inches. I would have a man 
follow the plow with a good sharp ax and give a 
smooth cut to all large roots that were broken. The 
trees themselves I should prune in a moderate way, 
no reckless cutting and slashing. I should wet the 
bodies and larger limbs and scrape them thoroughly, 
if they were covered with rough bark, that could be 
thus got off. Then some time in March I should 
spray them either with strong potash water or sul¬ 
phate of copper wash; later, as the buds were swell¬ 
ing, a good spraying of Bordeaux, and probably an¬ 
other Bordeaux spraying with some arsenical poison 
mixture along in 
May or early June. 
Assuming that the 
plowing has all 
been done in April, 
and the earlier the 
better, I should 
give thorough cul¬ 
ture through May, 
June and July with 
most approved im¬ 
plements at hand. 
Cutaway or spring- 
tooth harrow would 
serve the purpose 
best. A good lim¬ 
ing of the land, or 
a liberal dressing 
of hard-wood ash¬ 
es along the last 
of July, and then 
seeding the whole 
to clover would be 
my way of finish¬ 
ing up the season. 
The folio wing 
Winter I should 
give whatever further pruning seemed desirable, and 
spray according to apparent needs; a little fertilizer 
in the Spring, if my pocketbook would stand it, and 
then start the harrows the minute frost and mud 
would admit, and keep up the cultivation same as be¬ 
fore. By the second year the orchard ought to begin 
to feel and show the results of such treatment, and 
perhaps to do some business on its own account. 
Further annual treatment would continue along about 
the same lines, provided, of course, the results were 
such as to warrant it. Breaking and tearing as many 
roots as would be likely in this first plowing up would 
be a great shock to the trees, and probably force a 
strong development of fruit buds the first year of cul¬ 
tivation. and so I should reasonably expect a fine crop 
of apples the second year, but it is one thing to expect 
results from an orchard and another thing to get it. 
To handle an orchard as I have suggested will cost 
some money, energy and a reasonable amount of in¬ 
telligence, but a 40-acre apple orchard rightly handled 
is worth a lot of money, and ought to pay all the bills 
and leave a splendid profit on top of it 
I am a believer in culture, and have mighty little 
sympathy with the general orchardists who expect to 
get success in any other way. The success of Friend 
Hitchings, with his mulch system, and the apparent 
endorsement of the general plan by The R. N.-Y. is 
bound to lead a whole lot of lazy fellows astray. 
There are enough orchardists uncertain and wabbling 
anyway, and they will easily follow this idea, think¬ 
ing that a little bunch of hay here and there is really 
mulching. But even if they were to mulch as liber¬ 
ally as our friend Hitchings, there is a very grave 
doubt in my mind whether that is the right way to 
handle the soil. I have a notion that turning over 
the soil, shaking it up, and giving it sunlight and air 
occasionally has a beneficial effect, far beyond any¬ 
thing that we can estimate; while the covering up 
and smothering it with a mulch not only prevents all 
this, but serves as a breeding place for a whole lot of 
nuisances. I was more than sorry to see in The R. 
N.-Y., page 2, that my friend Craig, of Cornell, has 
taken the “teeter board” and got on the fence. Lead¬ 
ers of horticultural thought ought to lead in the right 
direction, and not follow every new straddlebug idea 
that comes along. Culture, culture, culture is the 
sure road to success, while any other scheme of hand¬ 
ling the orchard is pretty likely to lead the other way. 
Connecticut. j. h. hale. 
Mulching Versus Cultivation. 
At first glance the casual observer will jump at the 
conclusion that the two methods are radically op¬ 
posed to each other, and that if mulching is right and 
successful we have been making serious mistakes in 
practicing and preaching-cultivation. This, however, 
is not the case, as he will discover by a closer study 
of the methods of Mr. Vergon and Mr. Hitchings, 
whose operations have been brought most prominent¬ 
ly before the public. We need to study foundation 
principles more closely, and then work out their ap¬ 
plication to our individual needs and conditions, 
rather than blindly follow dogmatic rules and pre¬ 
cepts. The requirements of tree and fruit production, 
with which we have to do, are freedom from injurious 
insects and fungous diseases, and an abundant and 
judicious supply of plant food and moisture, and the 
best and most economical method by which to secure 
these requisites will depend largely upon circum¬ 
stances. The American people are impulsive and ver¬ 
satile and incline to go to extremes. Cultivation of 
orchards has been generally recommended of late, and 
most of the best orchardists are now following that 
method, but the more observing of them can see that 
the plan, like all others, has its disadvantages as well 
as its advantages, and when they hear of the plan of 
growing fruit by mulching they jump at the conclu¬ 
sion that they have at last found the perfect system. 
There are advantages and objections in both plans. 
The objections to cultivation are first that a great 
deal of labor is required, and at a very busy season. 
There is also more or less damage to the trunk and 
branches, and some apparent injury to the roots. I 
say apparent, because I am not sure that we have any 
very .iefinite idea as to when or how much we are 
injuring the tree by the removal of a few roots. We 
are also losing fertility and humus, although this 
latter objection does not hold with equal force when 
cover crops are used during the latter part of the 
growing season. There is also the objection of dirty 
windfalls, and it is claimed that the color and keep¬ 
ing qualities are not as good as in fruit from sod- 
grown trees. This last point, however, may be so 
modified by variations of climate and other conditions 
that an authoritative statement is hardy possible. 
So much for the objectionable features of this plan, 
and now what are the disadvantages of mulching? 
There is, I believe, more danger of harboring vermin 
and destructive insects, and also an objection might 
be raised against 
attracting the roots 
so near the sur¬ 
face, but if the sys¬ 
tem is kept up 
carefully and con¬ 
tinuously n a t u re 
will probably regu¬ 
late that. A recent 
writer in The R. 
N.-Y. presents an 
Important feature 
of the problem, 
when he speaks of 
the difficulty o f 
g r 0 w 1 ng a suffi¬ 
cient supply of 
mulching material 
in old o r c h a r ds 
where the trees 
shade the ground 
so completely as to 
destroy all vegeta¬ 
tion under them. 
Possibly the most 
profitable solution 
of a case of this 
kind would be the hauling in of straw or stalks or 
other litter from outside, and yet I can readily see 
that in many sections this practice might be too ex¬ 
pensive to be profitable. The mulch method is prob¬ 
ably better suited to the apple and pear than to trees 
of quicker growth and shorter life, like the peach and 
plum. We have near us quite a tract of thin sandy 
land with a cold moist subsoil, and about six or eight 
inches of moderately fertile surface soil. Consider¬ 
able difficulty has been experienced in growing trees 
to any great age in such soils under the usual meth¬ 
ods, and I have long advised that the plow never be 
used in orchards on such soils, but that the trees be 
mulched and the roots given the free use of the lim¬ 
ited feeding ground afforded, and not continuously 
cut off by the plow, as they are likely to be where 
cultivation is practiced in such shallow soil. This 
plan has proven to be a decided improvement where 
tried. On the whole the mulch method seems to be 
the easier and cheaper method, but mere ease and 
cheapness are not all that is required,. and the better 
class of orchardists will want conclusive evidence 
that equally good results are obtained. We want to 
know whether the mulch will supply as much mois¬ 
ture as will cultivation, and whether the bacteria in 
the shaded soil under the mulch will liberate the 
FAIR SPECIMENS OF PALMER GREENING APPLE. Fig. 22. 
