State Convention-—Success vs. Failure. 439 
i 
V 
exhaust the soil but it does compact the soil so that it cannot re¬ 
tain the falling rains or melting snows. “ Root-killing” is one of 
the most frequent forms of injury to which our trees are subject. 
This will not occur when the ground is well filled with w r ater— 
hence a frequent stirring of the soil, or a light mulch left on its 
surface through the year, are imperatively demanded. The high¬ 
est style of orchard-culture is to let some natural herbage grow on 
the surface, which should be mowed and left on the surface, each 
month of the growing season. Without pursuing this subject 
further, I will recapitulate by recommending as I have for the last 
twenty years: 
First. To plant on the hill-tops, or cooler slopes of the hill. 
Second. To plant such varieties as have proved successful in your 
several localities. 
Third. Cultivate or not, as may seem best for the health and pro¬ 
gress of the tree, but all culture should be for the tree more than 
for any secondary crop you may get from the land. 
We are told that success is the exception, and failure the rule 
in our State. This may safely be reversed when we observe and 
follow the lesson we may learn from the exceptional success of any 
one tree or orchard of our own immediate neighborhood. Like 
causes producedike results. 
Mr. Plumb: These orchards mentioned in the paper are all on 
timber-land. I would cite those, who have an opportunity to visit 
it, to the orchard planted on the State farm. There is an orchard 
of about four hundred trees, planted in 1867 and 1868, and out of 
that four hundred trees, the first year after they were planted, 
there were a few T of them that grew late. They were killed by the 
bark bursting, after the first hard frost in the fall. There are one 
or two of those trees that have root-killed since that time, but out of 
the four hundred, up to this date, only twenty-five, or thirty as 
Professor Daniells informs me, have been renewed. That orchard is 
what you would call perfect, If you visit Ohio or Michigan, or any 
of those fruit-growing States, and you see an orchard doing as well, 
you say, “now there is the place to raise fruit.” On the Univer¬ 
sity Farm, the same varieties were continued over on the southern 
slope of the hill, in order to test the location. Those have been re- 
