Vor.. LXXIII.. No. 4240. 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 21. 1014. 
WEEKLY $1.00 PEIi YEAR. 
A STUDY OF SOD MULCHED ORCHARDS. 
The Famed “ Hitchings” Method Compared. 
During the past 10 years we have had much to 
say about the so-called sod method of handling an 
orchard. Much of this talk has centered around the 
orchard of Grant Ilitchings, near Syracuse, N. Y. 
Mr. Hitchings was the pioneer 
in New York State for this 
Prof. Hedrick states that before starting the com¬ 
mercial orchard Mr. Hitchings had been a dairyman, 
and we understand that the most successful part of 
this orchard was formerly a pasture. The farm is 
on highly rolling bottom land on the hills of a deep 
valley. The land in the orchard is too steep for 
definite cultivation, and under constant tillage more 
In conducting the experiment various plots of 
ground were laid oft', so as to give a fair comparison 
of soil and apple variety. Some of these plots were 
given thorough culture, while others were conducted 
on the sod-mulch plan, and as careful records as 
possible were kept of yields, quality, cost, and other 
factors. These reports are too long to give in full. 
In a general way it may be 
stated that four varieties of ap- 
method of growing apples, and 
be has persisted in his argu¬ 
ment that cultivation was 
neither necessary nor wise for 
his orchard. Hitchings has 
been successful. He has de¬ 
veloped a very profitable busi¬ 
ness in apple culture and has 
succeeded in winning more 
prizes at the State Fair during 
the last 15 years than have 
been awarded to any other or¬ 
chard in the Empire State. The 
success of Mr. Hitchings in¬ 
duced many other growers to 
follow his method; some with 
success, and others with fail¬ 
ure. The trouble’ was that 
some of these growers did not 
luderstand just what Mr. 
Hitchings advocated, and they 
did not follow out his plan 
carefully. In other cases the 
orchards were located on land 
that was not naturally adapted 
to grass, and sod culture under 
these conditions in many cases 
meant simply neglect. Prof. 
Hedrick of the Geneva Experi¬ 
ment Station lias been conduct¬ 
ing some careful experiments 
in the Hitchings orchard, and 
also in another orchard of 
Western New York, to test 
out this difference between 
thorough culture and sod. At 
the recent meeting of the New 
York State Fruit Growers’ As¬ 
sociation, Prof. Hedrick gave 
a very thorough 
results in this 
chard, and laid 
conclusions as the result of his 
investigation. He gives this 
description of what is known 
as the Hitchings seed mulch 
method : 
What is the Hitchings method? 
The term has become the sound- 
symbol for a mixture of more or 
loss vague practices connected 
with sod in orchards; sod pas¬ 
tured with sheep, hogs or cows; 
sod of Blue grass, Orchard grass, 
clover. Alfalfa or weeds; sod 
from which the grass is cut for 
hay. or cut and piled about the 
trees, or going uncut; sod sup¬ 
plemented by straw, manure or 
other by-products ; sod the growth 
of years and sod turned under 
more or less frequently. This 
confusion has spread obscurity 
over much that has been said 
about the method. The description of his treatment, 
now to be described, must be kept in mind. 
In the Hitchings method the ground is laid down to 
sod before or as soon as tin* trees are set. and the grass 
is cut for a mulch once or twice per season as condi¬ 
tions may demand. The orchard remains in sod in¬ 
definitely, since plowing is supposed to be detrimental 
to the conservation of the mulch which is the essential 
of the treatment. The cut grass is not removed from 
the land and until roots and branches utilize the space 
between plants, it is raked and piled about the trees 
report of the 
Hitchings or- 
down certain 
"PEACHES” IN GOOD APPLE CULTURE. Fig. 54. 
Scene in a Western New York Orchard Near Apple Picking Time. 
or less washing would 
land may be looked for 
tions. This occurs 
soil at all seasons 
occur. Moist and springy 
at the foot of high eleva- 
in (he Hitchings orchard. The 
contains much water, although 
open ditches have been dug to carry this water 
away. This seepage down the hillside is one of the 
dangers whicfi bring success in the peculiar sod 
mulch culture of this orchard. 
pies, 10 years set at the begin¬ 
ning of the experiment, and 20 
years at the end, bore an aver¬ 
age of a little less than four 
bushels per tree under sod, 
while those in tillage gave a lit¬ 
tle more than three bushels per 
tree. The difference in favor 
of sod was four-fifths of a 
bushel per tree. The percent¬ 
age of poor fruit was much 
higher in the tillage section 
than in the sod. This was 
largely due to the fact that 
much of the fruit was harvest¬ 
ed by permitting it to drop to 
T the' 'gf’ound, and, of course, 
under this plan the sod pro¬ 
vided a softer and cleaner place 
for falling. As to the size of 
the apples, year in and year 
out there was very little dif¬ 
ference in the two sections. Of 
course the apples from the sod¬ 
ded plots were more highly 
colored than those from the 
tilled. It has been settled that 
sod increases the color of ap¬ 
ples. Prof. Hedrick says that 
another rule generally holds 
good; that color is antagonis¬ 
tic to yield of fruit, and to 
growth of trees. In the address 
from which we are quoting. 
Prof. Hedrick makes this state¬ 
ment : 
The correlations between color 
and quantity and color and growth 
of tree need a further considera¬ 
tion. Every orehardist of experi¬ 
ence in this region knows that 
girdled, wounded, diseased, de¬ 
crepit, or poorly nourished trees 
bear more highly colored fruit 
than healthy, normal trees.- In¬ 
deed. in this day of almost uni¬ 
versal tillage in commercial ap¬ 
ple orchards one of the common 
questions is: "How can I check 
growth and obtain more highly 
colored fruit?” High color in 
red apples is as dependable an 
indication of ill health in the tree 
as high pulse or high tempera¬ 
ture is in the human being. In 
growing apples we can usually 
say at once that high color is 
purchased at the expense of 
health or vigor. 
As for the size of trees. Prof. 
Hedrick concluded tnat those 
under tillage were rather bet¬ 
ter than the others, although it 
was hard to find any particular 
difference. The trees seem to 
thrive as well under one method 
as under the other. The foliage of the trees was on 
the whole darker and richer where these trees were 
cultivated, although in many cases there was practi¬ 
cally' no difference. It was found that the tilled 
trees usually bloomed and leafed out from one to 
several days in advance of the trees in sod. It was 
also found that the foliage of the sod trees was 
usually first to drop. One argument in favor of 
