New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 535 
give highest profits; lowest cost of production gives highest 
profits. 
We pass now to another phase of orchard management — 
that of inter-crops and cover-crops. The best modern orchard 
practice permits the growing of inter-crops, hoed crops pre- 
ferred, in an orchard until the trees come in bearing, and in- 
sists upon there being a cover-crop sowed at the close of the 
season’s cultivation to be plowed under the following spring. 
The use of inter-crops and cover-crops in orchards gives a 
splendid opportunity for the study of the likes and dislikes of 
plants for some plants seem to be really particular as to the 
company they keep. For instance, there are observations and 
some experimental data to show that the peach and the potato 
will not break bread and sup together in peace and if grown in 
intimate contact the results are disastrous and most so to the 
peach. Much ill-feeling is manifest between the cereals and 
the peach; not so marked between the cabbage family and 
the peach; while members of the clover family are pleasant 
and profitable companions for Madame Peach. All this sug- 
gests that crops for the orchard must be chosen with some care. 
If an inter-crop is sown, keep tree and crop so separated that 
they can not trouble each other. In the use of a cover-crop to 
check growth, interference with the food and drink of the tree 
by the cover-top must be expected; and lastly, in the case of 
the legumes at least, a crop may be sown which will materially 
add to the food-supply of the trees themselves. 
In the present-day fruit growing the horticulturist is not 
‘permitted to say much about insects, fungi and spraying. The 
botanist and the entomologist hold that the Almighty meant 
them in particular when he gave man dominion over “ every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” While we shall 
have to admit that the knowledge and skill of the entomologist 
and botanist are indispensable, yet the fruit grower can so plant 
as to avoid some of the warfare with pests in which we are all 
now engaged. Thus King, Roxbury and Northern Spy among 
apples are nearly free from scale as are the Kieffer, LeConte 
and Winter Nellis pears, Niagara and Field plums and all sour 
