1007. 
THE Hi U Hi A L> NEW-YORKER 
©19 
APPLE CULTURE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 
CULTIVATION OR MULCH ? 
An Important Experiment. 
Part VI. 
From what Mr. Hi tellings said last week it is pos¬ 
sible that we may lose track of the true reason for 
this orchard experiment unless we stick to it. Here 
was an orchard much like hundreds of others In 
western New York. It was doing well under high 
tillage. The argument is made that all this high 
tillage is unnecessary, so half the orchard is seeded to 
grass and “mulched”—that is, the grass is cut and left 
on the ground. Without any question this seeding to 
grass and “mulching” has injured the orchard. While 
I think the use of nitrate of soda or lime would have 
enabled the "mulched” part to make a better showing 
there can be no question about the result. If a man 
has an orchard under high tillage, and it is doing 
well it would seem to me a mistake, as judged by this 
experiment, to seed it down permanently. That 
seemed to be the conviction of Mr. Collamer, Mr. 
Tenny, Mr. Albert Wood and others who can be 
ranked as experts. These men have tried mulching, 
and some have used stable manure in addition. Yet 
all have gone back to thorough culture. Some of 
them let the orchard “rest” in an off year by letting 
the grass and weeds grow with one or more clippings. 
I his adds vegetable matter so that the land responds 
better to culture. I saw some of these “resting” or¬ 
chards. 
And yet I am getting letters from fruit growers 
who say that this experiment docs not, after all, prove 
anything against the true mulch method. My idea 
of a true mulched orchard is one where the trees are 
planted in sod with the roots closely pruned, and the 
grass cut and piled around the trees until they are 
of good size. That is what Mr. Hitch- 
ings advocates, and it is evident that 
such an orchard would be very differ¬ 
ent from one where the trees were 
planted in large holes and cultivated 
from the start. I wish the Station had 
taken another orchard in sod, plowed 
and cultivated half of it, and used on 
the other half a dressing of fertilizer 
equal in value to the cost of culture, and 
cut the grass for mulching. I think 
this would have been a better object 
lesson, for improvement is always more 
striking than degeneracy. The Auchter 
orchard should convince any good fruit 
grower in western New York that it 
would he folly for him to stop high cul¬ 
ture and. seed to grass. Yet the great 
majority of orchards in that section ap¬ 
pear to be in sod. Would the improve¬ 
ment in these orchards be as great as 
the degeneracy in the other? If so it 
would he a greater inducement for men 
to improve the sod orchards. You may 
ride for miles through western New 
York and pick out by the color of their 
foliage the well-tilled and fertilized orchards as dis¬ 
tinct from those left in sod and uncared for. lias 
anyone up there taken an orchard in permanent sod, 
manured or fertilized it well and cut the grass for 
mulch and also pruned and sprayed it well? If so 
what has the orchard done, and would it pay to 
plow and till such an orchard? 1 suggest that 100 
or more of us get together for an experiment. Let 
us take a sod orchard of fair size—plow half of it 
up ‘and cultivate and invest the cost of this culture in 
fertilizers for the other half, and’ leave all the grass 
on the ground. I have one orchard of 400 peach trees 
four years old, and one of about .500 apple trees five 
years old. I am willing to plow up a fair part of 
each as an experiment. 
I asked Prof. Hedrick why, in his opinion, the 
tilled part of the Auchter orchard is so much better 
than the other. Naturally all he can give is a theory 
based upon careful studies of the soil. During the 
season 50 samples of soil from each side of the 
orchard were taken for analysis. This 'will include 
the temperature, the amount of moisture present, the 
plant food and studies of the bacteria. I hope some 
of these samples were taken from the soil near those 
stone-wall trees. 
The analyses of these soils are not yet ready, but 
Prof. Hedrick believes that the tilled soil held more 
moisture than the sod. In answer to this it will be 
said bv the “mulchers” that in the past dry season 
the growing grass took large amounts of moisture 
from the soil, and that in three years from seeding 
the soil has not become filled with humus so as to 
hold the moisture as an old sod would. In a wetter 
season there would not have been this difference, but 
this year the thorough tillage was without doubt 
superior to the mulch. Again, the soil examinations 
appear to show that what are known as the “activities 
of the soil," that is, the chemical and biological 
changes, go on to better advantage in the tilled .soil. 
VVe can all understand that thorough culture by ad¬ 
mitting light and air would hasten the decay of 
vegetable matter and help break up the soil. I have 
felt that there were more insects, like earthworms, 
and more bacteria at work in the sod. In fact I 
have believed that the great accumulation of worms 
and other insects, and the work they do are largely 
responsible for the superior growth of trees along a 
stone wall. When we put a door or even a board 
on top of the soil we find that place, after a time, 
full of wormholes and crowded with insects. Much 
the same is true of soil under flat stones, and boys 
know where they go to find worms for bait. Yet, 1 
understand Prof. Hedrick to say that there were more 
insects in the tilled part of this orchard than in the 
sod. Another reason given is that the tilled soil 
showed a higher temperature than the sod. Tempera¬ 
ture records were taken three* times a week through 
the season, and these show that the soil on the tilled 
part was about one degree warmer at six inches, and 
two degrees warmer at 12 inches deep. Now right 
here I want to know about the temperature of the 
soil near those stone walls. I have never taken ac¬ 
curate records, but 1 believe such soil is cooler, and 
I believe this is one reason why my stone wall trees 
do so well. '1'he soil on our hills often bakes hard 
in a dry Summer, and becomes too hot for comfort. 
I think at such times the sod is cooler, and that 
seems to me an argument in favor of mulch in our 
locality. 1 think too that this may explain why, with 
us, the peach does not seem to do so well under mulch 
as the apple does. The peach evidently needs a 
warmer soil to do its best. I think also that when 
we know all about this' mulch method we shall find 
that varieties of apples differ somewhat in their soil 
ats^i 
hm 
Ssilh 
SAMPLES OF CORN FROM TESTED SEED. Fig. 472. 
requirements, and that some are naturally better in a 
cultivated soil. Prof. Hedrick gives two other 
reasons for the behavior of the tilled field, but we 
will leave them till next week. h. w. c. 
TESTED CORN IN OHIO. 
'1 lie field was an old upland, said to he very poor, 
and had been pastured for years because* it was not 
considered profitable to farm it in cultivated crops. 
I he field contained about 20 acres, was well-drained 
naturally, yet was not rough or hilly. The farm had 
been leased to tenants for over 20 years, but none 
would plow this field, and thus its reputation for 
poorness grew from year to year. However, Frank 
Boyham, the present tenant, did not believe the field 
was as poor as represented, and beside had a few 
ideas of his own. During the late Winter a few loads 
of manure were spread on some of the thin places, 
especially where the soil was inclined to wash, but 
the field in general was left as it was. The sod was 
old, root-bound and rather heavy. The field was 
plowed in March and April, and during the back¬ 
ward weather in May was well worked down and 
finally planted about May 22. Just before planting 
the field was fertilized with commercial fertilizer dis¬ 
tributed by means of a fertilizer wheat drill; then 
when the corn was planted more fertilizer was used, 
making a total of something less than 200 pounds 
per acre. The fertilizer carried nitrogen, three per 
cent; phosphoric acid, eight per cent; potash, four 
per cent; costing about $20 per ton, or about $4 per 
acre. Mr. Boyham had been selecting for a number 
of years i very excellent strain of Clarage corn, which 
produced from one to three fine ears to the stalk. 
He had always been careful to gather his seed early 
and to dry and store it before freezing weather, but 
he was not yet satisfied. Our corn crop of 1906 
was very bad for seed, as many of the ears had 
heated at cutting time, and so the vitality was im¬ 
paired, but yet the ears looked good. Mr. Boyham 
decided to test his seed corn, and constructed the 
apparatus shown in big. 471 for testing the corn 
while in the ear. It is modeled after a design by 
Prof. Holden and holds 196 ears in the rack, and 
in the tray below arc a corresponding number of 
spaces, in each of which five grains from each of the 
ears above are planted in actual soil and germinated 
under natural conditions. The spaces in both rack 
and tray are numbered in the same manner, so that 
there can be no mistakes. The spaces in both rack 
and tray are about 2J^ inches square, and are sepa¬ 
rated by small wires stretched across, and in the 
rack a double set of wires are used so as to support 
the ears properly. As but five grains were used in 
the test, in case everyone did not send up a strong 
vigorous sprout the ear from which they were taken 
was discarded. Even if but one grain failed out of 
five the germinating value of that ear is only 80 
per cent, which is far too small, so the only safe 
course is to discard such ears. As a result of the test¬ 
ing Mr. Boyham discarded nearly one-half his seed 
corn, which he fed to the hogs. 
May and early June of 1907 were the worst pos¬ 
sible, as to weather, for the germination of planted 
corn. Many fields here were planted over, and others 
were .but little better than half a stand. I saw Mr. 
Boyham’s corn in August and the stand was the 
nearest perfection I had seen for several years, and 
much better than anything T had seen elsewhere in 
1907, which certainly speaks highly for the tested seed 
corn. In a part of another field of 20 acres un¬ 
tested seed corn was used as a check, and here the 
much poorer stand was plainly evident; so as may be 
guessed Mr. Boyham is quite enthusiastic as to the 
value of testing seed corn. This field 
has been a practical object lesson to the 
neighbors, and as both fields are ad¬ 
jacent to a much-traveled pike, many 
persons from a distance, as well as 
nearby, have stopped to inquire the par¬ 
ticulars about this field of corn. It cer¬ 
tainly looked well in August, when pic¬ 
ture shown in Fig. 470 was taken. A 
lot of pumpkin vines will be noticed in 
the picture, and these yielded a good 
crop also, though pumpkins were nearly 
a failure here in other fields. 
Early in September Mr. Boyham de¬ 
cided to enter some of this corn at the 
Chicago Corn Show, but as the date 
of the show was so early (October 5-19) 
and our season backward and cool it 
seemed improbable that any corn would 
mature in time to get dry and sound 
enough to send to the exposition. With 
the aid of artificial heat the corn was 
dried all right and a* 10-ear sample 
won a prize of $15, which was sixth 
in the class of corn other than yellow 
or white open to Ohio contestants. Fig. 
472 shows six ears which are a fair sample of Mr. 
Boyham’s corn. The third ear from the right is of 
the type that the Ohio Experiment Station has found 
to yield the best in the ear-to-row corn breeding 
tests. . Ear No. 2 has the deepest grains, which are 
inch in length. This ear is 9 1 / 2 inches long, 7'/> 
inches in circumference and 20-rowed. Each car holds 
about 1,000 large, deep grains, with large germs. These 
six ears weigh 0J/f pounds, which is a little over one 
pound each. Mr. Boyham informs me that the yield 
of this field is easily so bushels per acre, and that 
the stand as well as the yield is very even over the 
entire field. Many of the neighbors have ordered 
a testing apparatus for their own use and a large 
number of farmers in various parts of the county 
have ordered some of this corn for seed 
Now just a few words in regard to the importance 
of size ot ear and of the evenness of the stand of 
corn in the field. Suppose we plant our corn in 
rows .'! x /> feet apart and check it or drill it so that 
we shall have a stalk at least every 20 inches, which 
means over 7,000 stalks to the measured acre. If 
every stalk shall produce one ear about one pound 
in weight then we shall have a yield of just 100 
bushels per acre. As our yields fall much below 
this it shows that our ears do not equal .one pound 
in weight and that there are not 7,000 stalks per 
acre, or rather, whatever the number may be, that 
thev are not so distributed over the field that each 
stalk can. yield its one-pound ear. Allowing for the 
inaccuracies of mechanical planting, for the unavoid¬ 
able losses of some stalks and for a few barren 
stalks, etc., on the one hand, and then oil the other 
hand we must allow for some twin-eared stalks, 
and as a result we find the yield of 80 bushel per 
acre has not fallen much short of the ideal. We 
should not be disappointed if we fall short of perfec¬ 
tion for nothing is perfect, and yet nothing is so 
good but what it might be made better if we make 
the effort. Therefore if selection, proper curing and 
the final testing of seed corn shall help us reach a 
point near the goal of perfection of yield we should 
not hesitate in adopting these methods of improving 
the seed corn. w. E. duckwaix. 
Ohio. 
