THIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1047 
1909. 
A STORY OF A MULCHED ORCHARD. 
A Visit to the Hitchings Farm. 
Part VI. 
I am asked by a Michigan reader if 
I dug down into the soil of the Hitch¬ 
ings orchard to see how deep the roots 
were running. This man thinks we 
should find most of the roots near 
the surface, so that plowing would de¬ 
stroy them and thus injure the trees. 
That is what is usually claimed, but 
I can see only one reason why Ml. 
Hitchings should want to plow in order 
to improve the trees. They are satis¬ 
factory in their performance and prom¬ 
ise as they stand. The most serious ob¬ 
jection I have found to this sod cul¬ 
ture is the danger from fire. Should 
fire start on a dry, windy day, say in 
Spring, before the new growth starts, 
the work of years would be quickly 
wiped out. I know this, because fire 
swept through my own orchard and 
ruined several hundred young trees. 
That is the weak point in a mulched 
orchard, and it is a serious problem. 
Near a railroad, or where careless 
hunters roam, a mulched orchard with¬ 
out fire protection for the trees is al¬ 
ways in danger when the grass is dry. 
We plow a wide strip around the or¬ 
chard to keep out running fires, and 
in some exposed places plow strips 
along the rows. I speak of this because 
we get at the facts, with no one-sided 
argument. The fire peril is the most 
serious objection to mulching that I 
have found. 
As to the root system, we have two 
opinions. The New York Experiment 
Station reports that the tree roots in 
the cultivated orchards were superior. 
It is claimed that they were stronger 
and deeper, and that on the mulched 
side a large proportion of the roots 
were running close to the surface. On 
the other hand, the Ohio Station ex¬ 
perimenters found that the mulched 
trees had practically a double system 
of roots. The upper soil, where the 
mulch lay, was a mass of roots, but 
below in the soil, the tree had set other 
roots quite as useful as those in the 
cultivated soil. It seemed to me that 
the Olfi® people proved their conten¬ 
tion that the roots in the mulched or¬ 
chard were such that plowing would 
not seriously injure the trees. It does 
not seem to me that those trees in the 
Hitchings orchard were injured by 
plowing the sod and destroying the 
roots. If that had been the trouble 
those trees would have given signs of 
hunger or thirst, which would result 
if their root system had been destroyed. 
Instead of this they gave every evi¬ 
dence of having been fed too much 
nitrogen—which was the result of plow¬ 
ing that heavy sod. In order to give all 
sides a fair hearing I will quote from 
the Geneva bulletin. 
Tho experiment does not show that apples 
cannot he grown in sod. There are many 
orchards in New York which would prove 
the contrary. It suggests, however, that 
apples thrive in sod, not because of the sod. 
but in spite of it. The fact that there are 
many thrifty orchards in sod in New York 
is not proof that these orchards would not 
do better under tillage. 
In considering the two methods of man¬ 
agement. of all the factors affecting the 
growth of trees in this experiment, conserva¬ 
tion of moisture should receive first atten¬ 
tion from the apple grower. This statement 
is affirmed not only by the results in the 
Auchter orchard but in practice the world 
over. The climate of Europe is moist; sod 
orchards are the rule there. Near the At¬ 
lantic seaboard in America, as in New Eng¬ 
land, where the rainfall is comparatively 
high, thrifty orchards are found in sod. In 
the western fruit regions where irrigation is 
practiced, sod orchards are hardly to be 
found : water is purchased and must be con¬ 
served. In irrigated lands tillage is found 
to be tho best means of moisture. In irri¬ 
gated lands tillage is found to be the best 
means of moisture conservation. Moisture 
is by no means tlie only factor to be con¬ 
sidered in the controversy over the sod and 
tillage methods of management, but it 
appears to be the chief one. 
It .seems to tne that our experi¬ 
menters desire to be fair -in this matter 
as in others. They firmly believe that 
even where orchards are doing fairly 
well in sod they would do even better 
if they were plowed and cultivated. It 
is no doubt this conviction which leads 
them to condemn any practice short 
of thorough culture. Very likely Prof. 
Craig put it nearly right last week 
when he said that success with mulch¬ 
ing is probably the exception. I notice, 
however, that many of the cultivators 
are beginning to follow the plan of 
letting the orchards stand in sod for 
several years “to rest,” as they call it. 
Of one thing I am sure—any man who 
thinks he can produce another Hitch¬ 
ings orchard without leaving everything 
that grows except the apples—and haul¬ 
ing in other mulching material also, 
will fail eight times in 10 . h. w. c. 
RAILROADS AND “ CARLOADS.” 
Jr., Ft. Pierce, Fla .—Does the Interstate 
Commerce Commission fix the minimum 
amount of freight that the various rail¬ 
roads must carry as a carload, or are the 
roads allowed to fix their own minimum? 
The roads here have a way of holding to 
different minimums (connecting lines), 
then, months after the stuff is sold, some 
one of them will demand the difference, 
say, between 250 crates as a load and 
300. 
Ans. —Railroads fix their own mini¬ 
mum weights for carloads, as they do the 
rate to charge. In fact, the minimum 
per car has much to do with the rate. 
As a rule the lower the weight the higher 
will be the minimum weight. A ship¬ 
per is expected to know the rate or 
rates from'shipping point to destination, 
and what is just as important, he must 
know the minimum weight that each 
road will exact over its line. The 
courts have placed the duty on the 
shipper to know the full charges of all 
kinds from start to finish. When its 
own agents and expert tariff clerks 
have difficulty in knowing for certain 
the charges it is a problem for the or¬ 
dinary man to be sure of anything. 
You are probably shipping berries or 
celery. One road figures 250 crates for 
a carload, but before the goods reach 
their market some other road which 
hauls them part way may figure at 300 
crates to the car. Then finally comes a 
call for more freight after the goods 
are sold. 
STARTING MELONS IN POTS. 
D. J. L., New Jersey .—A neighbor asks 
mo to write to you asking your opinion on 
raising muskmelon plants in flower pots 
and boxes. He seems to have trouble in 
making them grow after they come up, as 
they die down. He raises these plants in 
pots and boxes so as to receive an early 
crop. 
Ans.— Last Spring I got double the 
quantity of Emerald Gem melon seed, 
and gave half to a neighbor, together 
with some three-inch paper pots, and 
told her to plant the seed in the pots 
in a hotbed four weeks before time to 
plant the seed in the open ground. My 
own hotbeds were full of Lima beans 
and tomato plants, and as melons are a 
very small side line witli us, I neglected 
to sow any in pots. As a result, my 
neighbor had, much to my chagrin, ripe 
cantaloupes 10 days before I had. Now, 
as to the more important point. The 
plants in the pots were planted, pot and 
all, just as they come from the hotbed. 
I think there is where your correspond¬ 
ent fails. Melons are so sensitive that 
only an experiment station can success¬ 
fully transplant them if they are taken 
out of the pots. Successful growers 
use old strawberry boxes, inverted sod 
or paper pots, all of which are put in 
the open ground. p. b. crosby. 
Maryland. _ 
Mrs._ Rorer, of cook-book fame, tells 
of seeing a maid drop and break a 
beautiful platter at a dinner recently. 
1 he host did not permit a trifle like 
this to ruffle him in the least. “These 
little accidents happen 'most every dav,” 
he ? said apologetically. “You see, she 
isrv’t a trained waitress. She was a 
dairymaid originally, but she had to 
abandon that occupation on account of 
her inability to handle the cows with¬ 
out breaking their horns.”—Everybody’s 
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