New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 447 
clusions be accepted for the Ohio Station orchard it would be 
extremely difficult to make applications of them to other con- 
ditions. Thus the brief statement that “ the soil is quite uni- 
form as to fertility and general character,” without a word 
in regard to kind of soil, physical and chemical composition, 
depth and previous treatment, is not sufficient to permit wide 
application of the results of the experiment. As regards 
mulching there is only the statement that the trees in sod 
“were heavily mulched with straw.” 
How much straw per acre and the number of times of ap- 
plication are not given. Of the sod mulch trees the reader is 
told that they “ were planted in sod” but whether blue-grass, 
orchard-grass, timothy, clover or a combination of these does 
not appear, nor the age of the sod, how much mulch per 
acre it would produce, nor when the grass was cut for mulch- 
ing. An “annual turning under of a growth of leguminous 
plants ” is spoken of but what the plants were, when planted or 
when turned under is left to conjecture. Even so important 
a matter as the relative cost of the two methods is not con- 
sidered. Without these and other details it is almost impossibl]- 
to gauge the value and applicability of the Ohio experiment. 
Tillage is the rule for all domesticated plants. The 
horticultural authorities of the past have taught that thorough 
tillage is the best condition for the orchard. Practically all 
but the Ohio Station among the experiment stations of America 
now so teach. The burden of proof in the controversy over 
tillage and sod for the orchard rightly fell on the Ohio Station. 
It is assumed that they attempted to furnish such proof in 
this bulletin. But the Ohio investigators cannot convince 
without describing more fully their material, without allowing 
_ their readers to follow all the steps by which their discoveries 
are made, by making plain the logic of their conclusions, and 
by showing a more considerable body and a better quality of 
evidence than they have yet made public. 
