4 The Colorado Experiment Station. 
upon its surface, except such as was brought to it during the first 
twelve years by a few furrows which carried storm water from 
about forty acres of prairie. But it had received no water from this 
source since 1907, when the prairie adjoining was plowed. During 
three years, it produced quite good crops of apples, and some fruit 
has been borne every year since 1900. 
The Substation orchard is one of the best Dry-Land orchards 
in eastern Colorado. But, its history shows that the trees have 
needed extra water at some time during the year every year since 
they began bearing fruit. If, at this critical time, a barrel of water 
could have been given to each tree, much more fruit would have 
been borne and it would have been of better quality. 
The foregoing paragraph applies especially to apple trees. The 
cherry and plum trees produced good crops without extra water 
nearly every season until they began to suffer from old age. But, 
it is quite probable that they too would have given larger returns 
had they received extra water at some time during the year. By 
1910, all the plum trees and nearly all the cherry trees were dead. 
Gooseberries bore well during the years 1896-1900. By that time, 
they needed thinning and resetting. As this was not done they bore 
but little fruit during the later years. 
Forest trees were planted for windbreaks around the orchard 
and along the north side of the farm. Honey locust, black locust, 
Russian mulberry, White elm and Box elder have all done quite 
well. Russian mulberry bore considerable fruit while left untrim¬ 
med. After they were trimmed, they bore sparingly. Some trees 
bore fruit with fine flavor, while the fruit borne by other trees was 
insipid, and quite worthless. 
ROOT SYSTEMS OE APPLE TREES. 
As we were destroying trees, we thought it well to get some 
facts concerning the development of the root systems. In August, 
1910, we dug up four apple trees and examined the root systems, 
tracing the roots to their ends or until it was impracticable to trace 
them farther. One tree was a Wealthy which was set shallow in 
1894, one was a Wealthy which was set deep in 1897, one was a 
Mann which was set deep in 1897, and the other was a Ben Davis 
which was set shallow in 1895. 
Tree Number One .—This was one of the Wealthy trees which 
were set shallow in 1894. It was headed high. It was kept culti¬ 
vated on all sides until 1903. From 1903 until 1910 the ground on 
the west side was kept cultivated, while the ground on the east side 
was not stirred. When dug up, the top of the tree was dead on the 
east side. Only a few short roots were found on the east side. 
These grew about five feet horizontally and only one foot deep. 
But, on the west side four strong roots were traced ten to twelve 
