New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT Station. 457 
This is the one respect in which the sod-mulched fruit sur- 
passed the tilled. But since in every possible test in this ex- 
periment the tilled trees are shown to be most vigorous, and 
since wounded, diseased, weak-growing or decrepit trees always 
bear fruit of high color, and conversely well nourished trees 
often bear poorly colored fruits, it can be said that the bright 
color of the sod fruit is the hectic flush of disease or of de- 
crepitude. Of the several indications of the deleterious effects 
of grass in the orchard the abnormally high color is one of 
the most marked. The bright red of the sod-mulch fruit is 
purchased at the expense of the health and vigor of the trees. 
Maturity of fruit——rThe fruit on the sod-mulch plat is ma- 
ture enough to pick from one to three weeks earlier than that 
on the tilled plat. If the season is wet and cool the difference 
in ripening time is small, if dry and warm it is great; and so 
great as to make early maturity a serious evil outcome of the 
sod-mulch method of orchard management. For example, in 
this dry and warm season, 1908, the difference in ripening 
time was fully two weeks. In all of the five years the sod- 
mulched fruit has ripened materially earlier and has been 
picked first. 
Keeping-quality of fruit.—The difference in keeping quality 
of the fruit from the two plats is even more marked. At this 
writing, November 14, 1908, the sod-mulched apples kept in 
common storage are at their prime, while the tilled fruit is still 
firm and just reaching edible condition. There is more than a 
month’s difference in the keeping properties of the fruit from the 
two plats. The differences have been similarly marked, though 
in less degree, in the past years, warranting the statement that 
the tilled fruit will keep a month longer in common storage 
than the sod-mulched product. 
The following statement from Mr. G. Harold Powell, Po- 
mologist in charge of Fruit Transportation and Cold Storage 
Investigations in the United States Department of Agricul- 
ture, is a record of the keeping qualities of the fruit from the 
two plats in cold storage. 
