putting it under the trees. Finally, to save any part of the orchard, he had to plow it up.

A voice - Do you plow every year after the orchard is set? Mr. Tuttle No. Seed down for perhaps two or three years in clover, and then plow it up. It won't do to let June grass get in and remain any length of time. It must have cultivation. A voice-How would it do to seed down the first year, and let it remain two years?

Mr. Tuttle I would recommend the first five years after setting trees to cultivate the ground. After you had cultivated your ground for four or five years, and your trees have got a good vigorous growth, you might seed it down for a year or two. If you want to make a business of growing fruit, there is nothing more necessary than cultivation. I can grow more fruit on one apple tree, with good cultivation, than you can grow on ten with sod.

Mr. Jordan Perhaps I did not make myself fully understood. My idea of cultivating orchards is exactly as the gentleman has expressed. What I said in reference to planting in uncultivated and ungrubbed land, was land too steep to cultivate where we had cut off healthy timber. No grass sod.

Mr. Tuttle-If you afterwards keep all grass out of that soil you might do something.

Mr. NortonIt should be borne in mind by this assembly, that trees and all vegetables are full of mouths both top and bot tom. They are stretching for food. If you deny them that food they will die. In a damp country like England, where the winds blow from every quarter full of moisture, the leaves of the trees receive a great deal of moisture and they are more healthy. A tree there a hundred years old is bearing, but here about nine or ten years is the life of your apple trees. They must have moisture. This is a dry atmosphere, and they cannot get a great deal of moisture through the mouths of the leaves upon which they live. There are also the roots full of mouths, and you must cultivate the ground and let in the atmosphere and rain to strike the roots of the trees, or they will die. If it is an unbroken prairie soil, they starve to death.

Mr. Sheldon - I have had an experience of forty-five years, in La Fayette county, in fruit growing. Our first fruit was set out in 1835, in the prairie sod. One or two years sufficed to show us our mistake. It was all gone. I have planted grapes, apples and peaches, or my father before me has, and all kinds of fruit. We have done the best we knew how. We have had horticultural works in the house, and have studied them some; and after all this discussion, there is an undercurrent of thought which asks, Does it pay at last, in Wisconsin? This is rather taking the matter by the horns, to propose such a question as this. We take our fruit to Darlington, and sometimes they buy it and sometimes they do not. The last time I was in Darlington, I was solicited by a merchant there to buy a couple of barrels of beautiful Michigan apples. I told him I would take a couple if he would take four barrels of mine in exchange. He didn't see any profit in that kind of exchange. I had Russets; I had Tallman Sweets; I had various kinds of apples; but take what care I would, they would deteriorate in quality so that they would not stand the test alongside of Michigan, Ohio or Indiana apples. I could put potatoes on that soil, and buy my apples from Michigan at less cost than I could raise them. My grapes are the same. And the question now is, hadn't you better raise corn and pork where you raise these apples, and buy your apples from Michigan?

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Mr. Martin I have got an orchard that pays me over a hundred per cent. I went onto the place fourteen years ago this spring. I found the trees decayed, and between the trees was a good ditch both ways. I knew nothing about it. I had been a butcher previous to that. I thought that it didn't look right, and I leveled it down; and since that I have worked the ground every year. I found it very difficult to work with a horse, and that I had got to do it with a hoe. The worst trouble I have had is to keep my trees from bearing so much that they will burst all to pieces. [Laughter.]

This gentleman says our apples won't compare with Michigan apples. I shipped a hundred bushels to Minnesota, and they came in competition with Michigan apples and Ohio apples, and mine would sell more readily and were a better apple.

QUESTION BOX.

How can we best utilize and manage to a profit old pastures?

Mr. Hatch At the agricultural and horticultural convention, held last week in Richland county, one of our dairymen, who had had fifty years' experience in dairying, said that the older a pasture was the better it grew as a pasture. I suppose the way to get the most profit out of an old pasture would be to keep it a little longer.

Mr. Babbitt I have a pasture of about eighty acres of blue grass the grass that makes Kentucky so famous. A number of years ago, in traveling across the plains and seeing the manner in which the herders kept their stock, I assumed that if we managed our pastures here at home something upon that principlethat is, by not overfeeding, or putting too large a quantity of stock upon a given space of land- we should secure benefit; and that this matter of allowing stock to run all the year round depended upon just one thing; the advantage that they had over us was just simply this: that they did not use up the early growth of the pasture, but kept it for the stock during the winter. I went home, and adopted that principle, and I refused as high as two dollars a week for pasturing in Rock county. The result has been this: I have upon that pasture to-day twenty horses and about fifteen or more cows, that have run constantly all this winter. The horses never have been inside of a stable during these winter months. I have some open sheds that they can run under. I take a ton of straw, or about that, every other day, and scatter it all around the barn yard; let them have all they want of that, and the balance of the feed that the stock gets is the grass from the pasture. They are there constantly. They spend but very little time in the barn yards. My stock to-day looks as well as the stock of any farmer within the hearing of my voice.

Now, gentlemen, I believe that we are apt to overwork our land as well as to overwork ourselves. If you want your pastures to remain good, and stay by you through thick and thin and through hard times, don't strip it in the fall of the year.

I broke up two acres ten years ago and got a crop off from it. I let it remain. Never seeded it at all, but the grass has come

right back, and I defy any farmer in this room to tell the difference between the old pasture and that two acres. It has all been seeded twice with blue grass. Now take care of these blue grass pastures of Wisconsin, for there is wealth in them.

Mr. Broughton

In answer to the question I would say, let it remain as a pasture. I have used the same pasture for thirty-five years, with profit. The original soil is better than any pasture that has ever been broke.

In regard to the blue grass, my friend is correct.

SUGAR FROM AMBER CANE.

READ BEFORE THE AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION BY A. DAVIS, OF GALES

VILLE.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Being delegated to prepare a paper on the culture of sugar cane in the northern states, for this convention, and presuming that information is what is desired, I shall proceed at once to give the result of my researches. Not being experienced in this new branch of agriculture, I sought information from men practically engaged in the work, as being the most reliable and satisfactory.

To Mr. Isaac Hedges, of St. Louis, President of the Mississippi Valley Cane Growers' Association, I am particularly indebted for his work on sugar cane, which thoroughly discusses every phase of its culture and manufacture. Persons desiring information can not do better than to send for this book, the price of which is $1.

Mr. A. J. Russell, of Crystal Lake, Ill., vice president of the association, wrote me a gentlemanly letter, inclosing a small sample of sugar made from unripe cane. To Gen. Wm. LeDuc, Commmissioner of Agriculture, I am under obligations for a circular-letter, which no doubt will be sent to any one free on application. Cyrus C. Aldrich, of Morristown, Minn., and C. M. Schwarz, of Edwardsville, Ill., practical growers and manufacturers, have written personal letters containing much valuable information, and besides Mr. Aldrich kindly furnishes samples for

your inspection. Col. Colman, of the St. Louis Rural World, sent me a copy of his paper, containing the proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Association, which is of much interest. I have taken your time to recite my authorities, that you may judge of their reliability, and further, justice to them requires a public recognition of their services. The statistics given are as near an average as possible, from all taken together, which, however (with few exceptions), do not vary seriously.

The sugar-producing canes suitable for this climate are common cane and sorghum.

Of corn, there is as yet no preferred variety; field corn appearing to contain about as much saccharine matter as the sweet varieties. The corn should be cut in the "roasting ear," and can be used for feeding stock, or if of the sweet kind, for canning or drying. A crop of turnips or rutabagas can then be raised upon the same ground. Experience will of course teach us which variety is best, should it be largely cultivated for sugar-making purposes, but at present sorghum (which is more productive) seems to have the preference. The term sorghum is commonly used to designate all the northern sugar canes, and the plants embraced by that name came originally from China in Asia, and the Kaffirs in southeast Africa. They were transplanted in France by a Mr. Wray, who was persuaded by the late Horace Greeley to introduce them into this country. There are not less than twenty-five varieties, most of which have unpronounceable names, with which I will not tire your patience, but simply mention the Early Amber, at present most popular and widely known.

The soil that produces with best results is that which is best adapted to corn, provided it is not too low or rich; very rich soil produces very largely but of poor quality. Old soil, while not yielding so well, produces finer flavored results. The presence of sand seems a necessity, while lime is very desirable.

The ground should be prepared as for corn, and cannot be ploughed too deeply. In smoothing, one writer recommends that six rails be woven together with chains, near the ends, and used as a harrow. This, he claims, leaves the soil much looser than the usual way of preparing.