306. Report oF THE HorTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT OF THE 
The apple growers of New York should be especially inter 
ested in maintaining and increasing the fertility of their soils. 
The orchards are growing old; many, if not most of them, are 
past their prime and the trees are beginning to show the decay 
of old age. However trees and herbaceous plants may differ 
in use of food, they agree in this;— each succeeding crop har- 
vested from either finds the soils somewhat poorer. Again, 
much of the soil upon which apples have been planted did not 
originally possess high fertility; and such orchards are now in 
need of plant food. Then, too, some orchards have been double- 
cropped until the plant food in the soil is exhausted. Quite as 
detrimental to the soil as double-cropping is the lack of tillage. 
Jethro Tull announced in 1733 that “tillage is a means of in- 
creasing the pasture of a plant,” and since that time we have 
come to know that it is the chief of all means of maintaining 
soil fertility. Orchards can be grown profitably without tillage 
only in the most fertile soils; unfortunately, however, the opera- 
tion is neglected in many New York orchards, the soils of which 
are not fertile. ¢ 
It is scarcely necessary to point out that fruit growers have 
little definite knowledge of the manurial requirements of ary 
of the tree fruits. In fact, it is only within the past few years 
that there has been any thought that orchards needed fertilizers, 
the assumption having been that trees could take care of them- 
selves in this, as well as in many other respects. The literature 
of the subject is scant, fragmentary, and for most part unre- 
liable. There are records of but very few long-continued ex- 
periments with fertilizers for the apple. The apple grower 
cannot carry on fertilizer experiments of much value to others 
than himself and it is a difficult task for the experiment station. 
The investigation discussed in the following pages throws 
light only on the use of potash and phosphoric acid as found in 
certain fertilizers and as they affect but two qualities of the 
apple — yield and color of fruit; but the experiment has been 
carried on with care and exactness for twelve years, and since 
these are two of the chief mineral constituents of the food of the 
apple, and the fertilizers in which they were used are common 
ones, and the tree qualities important ones, the work, though not 
comprehensive, should. be valuable, and especially so, in view 
of the meagerness of our knowledge as to the effects of these 
foods on the apple. 
