298 Bulletin 72. 



mon opinion that only flat lands need draining, but one often 

 finds rolling lands in which the subsoil is high and hard and 

 holds the water like a wet blanket. Judicious draining not only- 

 carries off the superfluous water, but it also loosens the subsoil 

 and allows it to retain its moisture better in times of drouth. An 

 attempt should be made to bring the land in the various parts 

 of the orchard into conditions as uniform as possible, so that 

 the same tillage and treatment may be applied to the entire 

 area. All hard and "sour" spots should receive particular 

 care in draining and subjugation, or they should be left outside 

 the plantation. The present season has enforced the importance 

 of good drainage in the orchards of New York to an extent which 

 I have not known before. The spring was very wet and the sum- 

 mer has been very dry. In most orchards cultivation began so 

 late that the most assiduous attention during the later months has 

 not been able to correct the delay, and the efiects of the drouth 

 have thereby been intensified. 



Theory of tillage of orchards. — The first object of tillage is to 

 furnish plants with food. A fine mechanical condition of the 

 soil allows the plant to reach every portion of it, and aids greatly 

 in unlocking and utilizing materials which are more or less un- 

 available. 



But the advantage of tillage which I wish now to impress upon 

 the reader, is its conservation of moisture. The first plowing or 

 cultivation in the spring should be rather deep, in order to send 

 the roots deep into the soil ; and this result will be more easily 

 accomplished if the land is either naturally or artifically well 

 drained. Subsequent cultivation should be shallow and very fre- 

 quent, in order to make a mulch of the surface soil. The best 

 mulch — that is, the best conservator of moisture — is a frequently 

 stirred, soft and fine surface soil. And all the grateful efi"ects of 

 this surface mulch are ordinarily most marked when the soil con- 

 tains considerable vegetable fibre or humus, which, of itself, is a 

 conservator of moisture. 



But if orchards should be plowed early in spring, it does not 

 follow that they should be plowed in the fall. In fact, fall plow- 

 ing is commonly to be discouraged, for it leaves the soil in an 

 open and loose condition which may be injurious to the roots, and 



