Vol. LXII1 No 2864. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 17, 1904. u per year. 
APPLES IN INDIANA. 
Clean Cultivation and Clover. 
The accompanying pictures give a view 
in the orchard of S. T. S. Williams, Henry 
Co., Ind., and some of its products. Mr. 
Williams has 15 acres of apple trees, 
planted 13 years ago. The orchard stands 
on the crest and slopes of a small ridge, 
on stiff clay soil. The main varieties are 
Yellow Transparent, Longfield, Grimes, 
King, York Imperial, Northwestern Green¬ 
ing, Salome, Indiana Favorite, Late Straw¬ 
berry, Rome Beauty, Ben Davis. Clean 
cultivation was given the orchard until old 
enough to bear, when it was seeded to Red 
clover, in which it remained until the 
present. When the clover began to be thin 
on the ground Mr. Williams sowed clover 
seed in the Spring and ran over with a 
sharp-tooth harrow. In this way he had 
succeeded in keeping a fair growth of 
clover. The weeds and clover are mowed 
in June and left on the ground. He lets 
pigs, which are ringed, and sheep occasion¬ 
ally run in the orchard to pick up fallen 
fruit. He occasionally gives the orchard 
a dressing with wood ashes obtained at 
a nearby factory, and trims as needed to 
let the sun in, spraying thoroughly. His 
crop this year is 3,000 bushels, chiefly 
Grimes, Salome and York Imperial. His 
market is right at his storage house. He 
sells mostly to consumers, and is this year 
getting $2 to $4 a barrel for No. 1 and 
No. 2. Fully 95 per cent of his fruit 
comes within these grades from the trees. 
Ten barrels of his choice specimens were 
used at the World’s Fair in the Indiana 
State Exhibit, and received many compli¬ 
ments. 
Fig. 414 shows two piles of York Im¬ 
perial gathered from two trees, 11 bushels 
each. Fig. 415 shows the storage house 
from which sales are made. The fruit are 
King, Grimes and Spy. Fig. 413 shows, in 
the order named, Kieffer pear, Tompkins 
King, Northwestern Greening, Cranberry 
Pippin and Pewaukee. w. b. f. 
THE MULCH METHOD OF APPLE 
CULTURE. 
What does flic so-called “Hitchings” plan 
for apple orchard mean? r. 
Mr. Hitchings does not plow or culti¬ 
vate his orchards. His soil is naturally 
strong, and is well adapted to fruit grow¬ 
ing. The trees are planted in sod, and 
are kept “mulched”—that is, a covering 
of manure, straw, grass or whatever is 
available is put around them. As the 
grass in the orchard grows it is cut with 
a mowing machine and left to decay on 
the ground. It is not cured and taken out 
as hay. Manure, straw or other organic 
material is hauled in and spread over the 
surface of the ground. The object of 
this is to add organic matter to the soil 
and prevent the evaporation of moisture. 
The thick covering of grass and weeds 
on the surface keeps the soil cool and 
moist, giving an ideal condition for apple 
roots. The constant supply of humus or 
organic matter in the soil holds moisture, 
KIEFFER PEAR, KING, NORTHWESTERN GREENING, CRANBERRY 
PIPPIN AND PEWAUKEE APPLES. Fig. 413. 
A HOOSIER APPLE GROWER AND HIS CROP. Fig. 414. 
STORAGE ROOM ON AN INDIANA FRUIT FARM. Fig. 415. 
while its slow decay aids somewhat in 
making the fertility in the soil available. 
Lender this system there is mo loss of fer¬ 
tility except that removed in the crop of 
apples. The trees grown on this plan are 
peculiar in shape. They do not as a rule 
make as much wood growth as the culti¬ 
vated trees, and the limbs appear to sprawl 
out instead of growing erect. But little 
pruning is done under this system—sim¬ 
ply cutting out branches which tend to 
interfere with others. This “mulch meth¬ 
od” must not be confused with ordinary 
“sod culture,” where the grass is cut in 
the orchard and hauled out for hay, or 
where hogs or sheep are pastured. The 
advantages of this mulch method are evi¬ 
dent. One man can care for a large num¬ 
ber of trees. It is well suited to rough and 
steep hillside, which makes excellent loca¬ 
tion for apples, but cannot be cultivated 
at reasonable expense. The fruit grown 
in this way is firm and of high color—of 
better keeping quality usually than that 
from cultivated orchards. The chief ob¬ 
jection is the danger from fire when the 
mulch is dry, though this is not serious at 
the season when such fires are most likely 
to occur. The system has been discredited 
by some persons because they have never 
seen it fully carried out, and assume that 
the old-fashioned “sod” of weeds and poor 
grass is the same thing. 
WHITE LEAD AND OIL ON TREES 
White lead and oil is a very common 
application to apple trees, both to the 
wounds where limbs have been sawed off 
and to the trunks of the trees. As to 
the injury, I have never heard of a case 
of trees being injured by the application, 
and I have used it for eight or ten years 
continuously myself, so that I do not think 
there is any possibility of injury from the 
use of a mixture of pure lead and oil. 
However, where commercially mixed com¬ 
pounds are taken with other ingredients, 
I would not like to say r positively, al- 
thought 1 think even here that the proba¬ 
bility of injury would be very doubtful. 
As to the effect of such a mixture in keep¬ 
ing out borers and keeping off rabbits, I 
would not like to speak so confidently. 
It does not seem to be satisfactory in 
keeping out borers; at least not in sections 
of the country where borers are at all 
numerous. Whether this is wholly due, 
however, to a fault of the mixture, or 
whether it is partially due to careless ap¬ 
plication, I would not like to say. I have 
found out some years ago, in painting 
on substances which were supposed to 
keep out borers, that if one were to go 
over a whole tree from the ground up 
18 inches and missed a spot the size of a 
nail head, the adult insect would find 
that spot and lay an egg there. The no¬ 
tion 'among the best commercial growers 
is that the best remedy for borers is a 
good pocket knife, going over the trees 
twice a season, and being careful tw get 
all the borers present. It is much easier 
to keep rabbits away from trees; in fact, 
I think I have in the course of my ex- 
