THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
325 
ISO?. 
Hope Farm Notes 
-- ■■ ■ ■' ■ ■ ■- — 
Orchards in Sod.—I am often asked 
about our sod orchards. Would I advise 
a man of middle life to plant an apple 
orchard and expect to get fruit without 
cultivation? The more my own orchard 
grows the more I hesitate to give a 
definite reply. One who tries to view 
the world with philosophy may well try 
to learn from any source. A prize 
fighter once succeeded in pounding a 
“championship” out of the body of an¬ 
other human Brute. A number of other 
“pugs” at once started up asking him to 
fight. Some of them were willing to be 
made to look like a Hamburger steak in 
order to “split up the purse.” The 
“champ,” however, was king for a few 
days and he waved them aside with a 
wise injunction, “Go and get a record!” 
Now this man might pound out a “rec¬ 
ord” in half an hour, but years are re¬ 
quired to get one in an orchard. I am 
aware that our cultivator friends have me 
on this side of the question. It is always 
safe for a man to shake his head wisely 
and say, “You v^ait.” The future may be 
expected to bring disaster to most plans. 
I wait until I have that “record” before 
I lay down any definite rules without 
putting an “if” or an “I think” in for 
good measure. But there are others! I 
give way for Dr. Fisher, who has a 
“record” older than I am: 
“Old Sod.” —In the Spring of 1854 I 
planted an apple orchard of 59 trees, nine 
of which, from various causes, have suc¬ 
cumbed. The varieties to-day consist of 
18 Rhode Island Greening, 18 Ilubbards- 
ton Nonsuch, 12 Baldwin, one Graven- 
stein, and one King. They were set 30 
feet apart in a modified form of quin¬ 
cunx, that is, each tree stood in a center 
surrounded by six others, all at equal dis¬ 
tances. In 15 years the Greenings had 
met and the growth since has been mostly 
heavenward. Other varieties are but lit¬ 
tle crowded. For 25 years the ground 
was kept throughly cultivated. In 1879 
a somewhat sloping pear orchard under 
constant cultivation for 23 years had lost 
by washing so much of the finer parts 
of the soil that it became imperative to 
stay such waste. It was seeded in July 
and August of that year with 19 pounds 
per acre of White clover alone. In 
18S0 a magnificent crop of White clover 
that was a feast to look upon grew and 
was mowed two or three times, and left 
to rot upon the ground. In 1881 a still 
larger crop was realized and finding that 
such an amount, left where it grew, would 
kill out much of the sward underneath, 
most of it was placed in a circle directly 
around the trees with the object in view 
to suppress vegetation there. These cir¬ 
cles were from six to 10 feet in diameter. 
I was so much pleased with the result 
that I repeated the seeding in another pear 
orchard that was nearly level, and I also 
allowed the grass which had begun to 
grow in the apple orchard, to grow un¬ 
hindered. This policy has been followed 
in each of these three orchard? for 25 
years. I think it was the first and orig¬ 
inal “grass mulch,” so much praised and 
ridiculed within recent years. 
All of these trees have been fertilized 
each Spring with a formula giving 11.25 
per cent of potassium oxide, 8.25 per 
cent of nitrogen, 2.6 per cent of soluble 
phosphoric acid and 2 per cent of mag¬ 
nesium oxide. Of this formula about 600 
pounds is applied over the whole surface 
of an acre of apples, and about 1,000 
pounds to the pears annually. The apple 
orchard of 50 trees occupying just about 
an acre is now 52 years old, and the 
amount of product for the last 25 years 
may be of interest. The crops have 
varied from less than one barrel in 1897 
to 305 barrels in 1906, when the orchard 
52 years old, gave its largest yield; 2,853 
barrels have been sold which is an aver¬ 
age of 114 per year. The net price has 
varied from a little less than $1 to $6, the 
latter price in 1890, when 130 barrels 
sold for $561.14, the largest amount for 
•any one year, though the next best was 
in 1906, being $550.79. The average net 
sales for 25 years have been $242 or $2.12 
per barrel. If we should allow what I 
think is more than ample to cover the 
cost of interest on the original value of the 
land and trees, pruning, thinning, fertiliz¬ 
ing, mowing, spraying, harvesting, barrels 
and marketing, $92, there would be left for 
dividend purpose $150 per annum, a six 
per cent rate on a valuation of $2,500. 
I his result has been so satisfactory tha 
notwithstanding I am not as young as 
52 years ago, still being only 83, I planted 
an orchard of 112 trees a year ago. As 
the result of my experience thus far these 
trees were, planted 20 feet apart, one-year 
°Jd trees, in old, bound out grass sward. 
Fertilizer and grass mulch will be their 
treatment. The varieties are 42 Spy, 23 
Sutton, 22 McIntosh, 10 Baldwin, eight 
Wealthy, five Jonathan, and two Spitzen- 
kurg- DR. JABEZ FISHER. 
Massachusetts. 
Dr. Fisher read a paper on this “grass 
mulch” 18 years ago, before the Massa¬ 
chusetts Board of Agriculture. If he is 
not the original “grass mulch” man, where 
is that gentleman to be found? Where 
are. those despondent citizens of 50 who 
hesitate to plant an orchard? Here is 
Dr. Fisher at 83 still planting trees! 
\\ bile. I haven’t any such “record” yet, 
even in years of life, I have a big faith 
in this method when it is faithfully car¬ 
ried out. You must provide plenty of 
mulch, especially for the young trees. 
After the trees begin to bear you must 
feed them well. I feel sure that it is an 
essential part of this method to cut the 
tree severely back, both root and top 
when planting. You get a better root 
system that way and have better control 
of the top as it grows. I am using a 
number of yearling apple trees this year 
for this sod method and planting 20 and 
even 16 feet apart. When they crowd I 
can dig the trees out and transplant 
them. 
Special Fertilizers. —Here is a sensi¬ 
ble letter from New York which every 
farmer who uses fertilizers may well 
read: 
The article “Extra Value of High-Grade 
I'ortilizers,” page 204. March 9, is all right 
in a way, and “wav off” in some respects 
If one needs all the elements of plant food 
in abundance, then the high-grade goods are 
cheapest, provided they are so mixed with tile 
soil that they do not injure the seed as soon 
as the plant_starts. But many soils do not 
need aU the elements of plant food, and then 
‘specials" containing only phosphoric acid, 
or phosphoric acid and potash, are just as 
valuable. In this section farmers are keen¬ 
ing anywhere from 10 to 100 cows on tlie'ir 
farms, and buying the protein feeds and 
drawing manures direct from the stables 
i hey are feeding and growing clovers, and 
so it is a waste of their monev to buv 
nitrogen, hut they can afford to supply what 
their manure lacks, namely, phosphoric acid 
and potash. One farmer recently gave his 
experience thus : “I always thought the host 
was the cheapest, and so hought a 4-8-7 
/mF C01I t 9 n r ' ver flats. Running short 
of fertilizer I bought a 12-5 brand of the 
same man s goods, and actually got better 
Faults from my $21 goods than I did from' 
the $3o goods. Inquiry showed that the 
field had been frequently top-dressed with 
stable manure to produce hay. and the result 
proved that what this field needed was the 
1_ per cent phosphoric acid and the five per 
cent potash, and that the money expended 
tor that four per cent of nitrogen was utter¬ 
ly wasted unless it could he held in the soil 
tor a future crop. The corn didn't need it. 
Again, I do not understand the basis of 
calculation on the “market value” of the 
goods. For instance, the second 15 samples, 
testing one-sixth less, nitrogen and phosphoric 
a l , iUU 1 ^ v one-sixth more of potash, vet 
costs $1.22 more per ton than the first 15 
samples, vyhich I would pronounce the better 
goods. The best thine for the farmer to do 
is to study what fertilizers actually do for 
crops then experiment until he can find 
.lust wliat his conditions require. There is 
no single rule in fertilizers to fit all condi 
tions of soil and crop. j p. s 
Delaware Co., N. Y. 
. Tt is very true that where large quan¬ 
tities of manure are used on corn little 
if any extra nitrogen is needed Potash 
and phosphoric acid are needed in many 
cases, but .as a rule these elements cost 
too much in the form of low-grade fer¬ 
tilizers. A “12-5 brand,” such as our 
friend mentions will probably be a mix¬ 
ture of acid phosphate and muriate of 
potash. Now. why should a farmer pay 
for the . bagging, mixing and handling, 
commissions and other expense? if he can 
get the separate chemicals cheaper? Let 
him .use acid phosphate or basic slag and 
muriate, and do his own mixing or put 
them on separate. The figures were taken 
from the report of the Connecticut Sta¬ 
tion. As we understand the values were 
based on the prices charged for these fer¬ 
tilizers on the market. The cost of bag¬ 
ging, handling and mixing are as much 
on a mixture containing two elements 
as on one containing six or seven. As 
a rule the agent gets nearly as much for 
selling a $25 mixture as he does for one 
for $40. That is largely why you get more 
actual plant food for a dollar in the high 
grade goods. Our friend speaks a great 
truth in his last few lines. Carried out 
to its. settlement this means use separate 
chemicals as needed with the stable man¬ 
ure on corn and a few other crops. Use 
chemicals on potatoes and similar crops, 
and never buy a mixed fertilizer when the 
price and analysis shows that it is “low 
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