340 TREATMENT OF APPLE.TREES. 
Mulching the ground with clean straw, which would diminish 
the evaporation, and hardening the surface by rolling, which 
would have the opposite effect, did not seem to have any 
marked influence, though the results indicated that this would 
be dependent on the peculiarities of the season. Repeated 
digging ofthe soil, instead of hoeing, was equally without 
effect. 
Various methods of planting trees were tried, but no 
decided effect was produced ; though wherever the method of 
planting favoured an increased supply of moisture to the 
roots, there was a general tendency for the leaf-size to be 
unatfected and for the wood formation to be slightly 
increased; wherever the reverse was the case, the leaf-size 
was perhaps increased and the wood formation diminished. 
The effects of peat and compost were favourable both to leaf- 
size and wood formation, owing it is believed to an increase 
in the porosity and moisture of the soil. Sets of trees. 
planted respectively in November, January, and March, did 
not show anything in favour of either of these different times. 
for planting purposes. 
The effect of the manures in all the experiments was. 
practically 2/7, The normal dressing consisted of artificial 
manures equal to about 12 tons of dung peracre. In many 
of the experiments: this quantity was doubled, halved, or 
omitted altogether; each one of the main constituents. 
(potash, phosphorus and: nitrogen) was omitted in certain 
plots, ammonia was substituted for nitrate, dung was used 
alone or in addition to. the artificial manure, and both the 
minerals and the nitrate were applied at. various seasons of 
the year, but none of the dressings had any effect either on the 
leaf weights or the size of the trees, or up to the present on 
their fruiting. 
The conclusion is therefore drawn that the soil of the 
Woburn farm has contained up to the present all the 
nourishment necessary for fruit trees; but as that soil is not. 
exceptionally fertile, the authors of the report conclude that 
there must be thousands of other fields which would behave 
in exactly the same way, and that any manure put on them 
for many years would. be as much wasted as it apparently 
has been at Woburn. 3 3 
