Vor.. LXVIII No. 4018. 
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 30, 1909. 
WEEKI.Y, 11.00 PER YEAR. 
THE STUDY OF A MULCHED ORCHARD. 
A Visit to the Hitchings Farm. 
Part ii. 
The older trees were planted on a hillside which, 
I understand was once a sheep pasture and thus 
well stocked with plant food. It is strong, natural 
grass land, and th6 continued clipping of the grass 
year after year has thickened the sod much as it 
does with a lawn. The soil is covered with a soft 
thick mass of rotting grass. Dig into the soil and it 
is found dark colored and full of humus. It does 
not seem so strange that these trees have grown 
and given fruit year after year without fertilizer 
or manure when we' realize what grass does for 
a soil. I remember five years ago visiting the 
Hitchings farm when he had just planted an or¬ 
chard. The trees had been set in an old hill pas¬ 
ture and lightly mulched close around them with 
straw or manure. I noticed the grass in this field 
particularly. The soil did 
not seem as good as that 
in the older orchard, and 
I do not think one could 
have cut 800 pounds of 
hay to the acre at that 
time. Since then nothing 
has been done but cut 
the grass once a year 
and leave it as it fell. 
The trees have made a 
steady growth, but what 
is most remarkable, I am 
sure that the field would 
now cut 2,500 to 3,000 
pounds of hay per acre. 
And this increase must 
be due entirely to the 
grass, which year after 
year has been cut and 
left on the ground. I 
have noticed much the 
same thing in one of 
my own fields—a poor 
spot at the back of the 
farm. By continual clip¬ 
ping the weeds and 
coarse grass and leaving 
the clippings to rot on 
top of the ground we 
have darkened the color 
of the soil and brought 
in a heavier growth of 
better grass. Let it be 
fully understood that Mr. 
Hitchings simply prunes 
the tree moderately, digs 
a hole in the sod, plants the tree and lets it alone. 
There is no plowing or cultivating at all. The young 
tree is mulched by throwing a mound of manure, 
straw or grass around it. Protection from mice is 
given by rolling fine wire netting around the base of 
the tree. The grass is cut with a mowing machine 
and with a scythe once and left where it falls. That 
is all the “culture” these trees have from the start. 
Now what have they come to under such a plan? 
A sample tree in the bearing orchard is shown at 
big. 513. The peculiar shape and appearance of this 
tree is due to the fact that it has grown naturally— 
without pruning except to cut off the interlocking 
branches. I am making no argument for or against 
this plan, but simply trying to show just what the 
orchard looks like. These trees were well covered 
with fruit at the time of my visit. This fruit was 
of fair size, highly colored and remarkably free from 
blemish. With apples from this orchard Mr. 
Hitchings has for about a dozen years won 
first prize at the New York State Fair. A sam¬ 
ple of his Duchess apple is shown at Fig. 516, 
page 943. When I was there windfalls of Wealthy 
and other Fall varieties were bringing one dollar a 
bushel in Syracuse. From these low-spreading trees 
a drop to the ground is a short journey, and it is 
much like falling upon a feather bed when they 
strike that soft mat of grass. In the average culti¬ 
vated orchard or on a so-called cover crop I am 
cpiite sure that 40 per cent of these windfalls would 
be classed as culls. I would make that estimate 
from the appearance of the fallen fruit on a part 
of the orchard where an experiment with cultivation 
is being carried on. Of course fruit growers do not 
measure their success by the windfall crop, but at 
one dollar a bushel it is worth talking about. 
I think I know something of how to judge the 
health of a tree by the color and size of the foliage 
the fruit buds formed for next year, the length of 
this year’s growth and the appearance of the fruit. 
With the possible exception of color these mulched 
trees were very satisfactory. The new growth would 
average 12 inches or more on most of the bearing 
trees, and considerably more on the younger ones. 
The fruit buds were plump and well-formed, show¬ 
ing an abundant crop for next year. The leaves 
were large and well formed, but not as dark a green 
as on the younger trees in the other orchard. Ex¬ 
cept for this lighter color, which was the result of the 
dry Summer, no fair criticism could be made as to 
the health and vigor of these trees. With the load 
of fruit buds they are carrying and the growth they 
have made this year there is a sure prospect for 
continued crops. As stated before the crop in sight 
this year is estimated at $3,000. The quality and color 
of the fruit are remarkably high. 
Right in the heart of this orchard the Geneva 
Experiment Station has selected a strip for an ex¬ 
periment in culture. My understanding is that the 
culture is the same as that given in Western New 
York. The ground is plowed in the Spring, thor¬ 
oughly tilled and seeded to clover as a catch crop in 
late Summer. This clover was growing at the time 
of my visit, though small in consequence of the 
drought. I walked all over this cultivated strip, ex¬ 
amining all the trees, and then walked all around it 
examining the trees in the adjoining sod. The culti¬ 
vated trees were, on the whole, darker green in color. 
3 heir growth for this year was about the same— 
possibly a little larger than on the sod trees. The 
fruit buds were not quite so well developed. In my 
judgment there was a smaller crop of fruit, of 
lighter color. No one can tell exactly until the crop 
is picked, but I should say that the crop on 50 of 
the sod trees would be worth 20 per cent more than 
that of 50 that were cultivated. There was little if 
any disease on the sod trees, while practically every 
one of the cultivated trees was more or less blighted. 
On several of them the blighted limbs had been cut 
away from year to year, so that mere skeletons of 
the original trees were 
left. Geo. T. Powell told 
me two years ago that 
this experiment in cul¬ 
ture would ruin a num¬ 
ber of Mr. Hitchings’s 
trees, notably the Alex¬ 
anders. I certainly would 
not give much for some 
of them as they stand. 
Now let me say again 
that I have no motive in 
making these statements 
except a desire to bring 
out the facts. There is 
absolutely no doubt that 
thus far the Hitchings 
orchard and farm have 
proved a financial suc¬ 
cess with the work with¬ 
in the limit of an average 
farm family. Let any 
fruit man go and look 
at these trees and exam¬ 
ine the fruit buds and 
he will say that their fu¬ 
ture is secure. He will 
also say that cultivation 
in this orchard has, on 
the whole, done the trees 
more harm than good. 
There might be an argu¬ 
ment on this point, but 
I think most fruit grow¬ 
ers would call the above 
a fair statement. And 
yet this same sort of 
culture evidently gave superior trees and a larger 
crop in Western New York. 
Mr. Hitchings says emphatically that if he had fol¬ 
lowed the Station’s ideas of cultivation among all his 
1,400 trees he ivould be bankrupt to-day! 
Now I am going on to see if we can find the reason 
for some of these contradictory results. H. w. c. 
FIREMAN AND SCREENS ON LOCOMOTIVES. 
On page 862 I notice the writer of the article 
gives the fireman a hard name to the readers of 
The R. N.-Y. if they all think as I have heard one 
or two say. I would like to talk in person with 
the man who claimed he knew what he was talking 
about. Or I would like to run the engine for him 
to fire, and see if he felt like taking a half hour to 
open the front end and get burned half a dozen 
times, and punch a hole in a screen that a hammer 
and chisel will hardly cut. and against the hot 
gases and smoke. I have fired a good many engines, 
GRANT G. HITCHINGS AND A TYPICAL MULCHED APPLE TREE. Fig. 513. 
Natural Growth with little Pruning. 
