The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1899-12-23
FARM AND GARDEN.
MATTERS OF INTEREST TO
& AGRICULTURlSTS
6omo Up-to-Date Hints About Gull
ttvation of the Soil and Yields
Observation-Disclosures Viticuiture and
s Horticulture. =
Mulching Trees.

=
CONDENSED from Farmers Review
Stenographic Report of Northern Illinois
Horticultural Convention.)
ME-. Friend.-I don't believe strong
muching is worth anything unless you
have rain enough to keep it moist be-
low. The air can escape through the
mulching and the ground cracks open
and gets just as dry below the mulching
as II. could get where there is no mulch
1ng. have a place on my farm that I
call the "bad acre." When a nursery
man sends me a tree that is not true
to name I plant it on that bad acre:
among others have a little apple
tree near where throw the barnyard
manure. This little tree through the
Summer had from four to eight inches
o1 dry manure all around it, close to 1t,
SO 1t would serve as mulching if mulch
Ing was any good. I have dug that
away after the season was over and
found the ground cracked open. Such
mulch may keep the smaller rains
from going down to the roots and In.
that case it doesn't help the tree a bit.
q am confirmed in the notion that such
mulching as would be. applied by the
farmer, is of little value. I believe that
the only mulch that is worth anything
y to harrow and dig up the ground.
8 Mr.. Hoxie.-Mr. Bailey is credited
with saying, If you have a watering
pot, throw 1t away" This gentleman
believes in stirring the soil.
DR.. Humphrey.-Th is differ
ence between mulching all over your
farm and little local mulch around
trees. Nature makes a mulch in the
forest by the leaves. Nature mulches
your strawberry bed with leaves in the
winter. I mulch my apple trees, but I
just mulch them with the potato vines
grown in my orchard. 1 commence
digging the last Of June or the first OF
my potatoes around the trees. It is
little local affair and it isn't mulching
the whole ground. I have never found
that 1t did particle of harm, but L
I believe. it has always done good, and
the trees have flourished under little
mulching of that kind. I am sure it
holds moisture because I have exam
lned many times. A little mulch
around individual trees of nearly every
sort believe to be a good thing and
so far as l know makes thrifty and
long-lived growth. I never had but
one calamity. I undertook to feed the
catalpa as would feed the cherry and
annie and tho i11
dwarfed them so they never amounted
to anything.
Mr.. Morgan.-I do not believe in
mulching trees. l do not care to use it
on anything but asparagus beds and
pie plant While on the farm I always
mulched my pie plant heavily with
horse manure.
Q.-At what time?
Mr.. Morgan.-In the fall. I always
did, and always had the largest, fin
est kind of pie plant and asparagus.
Mr.. Clybourn.-On my place in
of my neighbors raises the same sort
of peaches that do, but mine were far
superior to his this summer, and the
reason was that had the ground cul-
tivated between the trees and the fruit
proved to be larger and far superior
Mr.. Hartwell.-I want to endorse
Mr.. Morgan. This mulching for saw
ing labor is a delusion and snare
You cannot save labor by mulching.
Your mulching don't hold the moist
ure as the cultivating will.