Mr. Andrews: If the ground is rich and under thorough cultivation it does tend to cause fire blight. I haven't followed it on anything but young orchards. When they have commenced to bear then we have generally seeded down and turned in the hogs, and we have rather neglected the cultivation after that. I do think that if we had cultivated a little more often it would have been better.
Mr. Older: What do you consider the best to seed down with, clover or alfalfa?
Mr. Andrews: I have never tried alfalfa. I don't see why it wouldn't be all right, if you don't try to keep it too long. It would furnish the nitrogen all right.
Mr. Older: Which kind of seeding down would you prefer, what kind of clover? Would you want the Alsike clover or sweet clover for an apple orchard?
Mr. Andrews: I haven't tried anything but the medium clover. The sweet clover I think would be rather a rank grower.
Mr. Older: If you are going to mow it, why not mow the sweet clover same as the other?
Mr. Andrews: That would be all right. If you were going to use it for mulching, I think it would be the thing, because it would be better for mulching than for feeding.
Mr. Ludlow: I would like to give a little experience in putting in alfalfa in an orchard. We got the seed, the Grimm alfalfa, I think, is the name of it, and I got a good stand. We got seed from it the first year, and I sowed more, but there seemed to be something about the alfalfa that would draw the pocket-gophers from two miles around. The second year I think I had nineteen of my thriftiest apple tree roots all eaten off. I didn't know there was one in the field because there were no mounds at all. In the spring I found where they were at work, and I catch on an average of twenty pocket-gophers out of that mound every year. Talk about cultivating, the pocket-gophers will cultivate it, and the alfalfa is pretty much all eaten out and it has come into bluegrass.
Mr. Harrison: That question as to alfalfa; the experience is always that the roots go too deep so it hurts the apple trees. Red clover seems to be the clover that is favored by most people.
Mr. Andrews: Mr. Ludlow spoke of the pocket-gopher favoring alfalfa. We have a patch of alfalfa right near the apple trees. I don't remember that I have noticed any pocket-gophers work in that piece at all. On the opposite side of the road, where it is clover and timothy, why, they work there tremendously. I know Brother Ludlow was telling us a little while ago at dinner about pocket-gophers working on his place, and I wouldn't wonder if he is blessed with an extra colony of them there.