56 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



Let us lirst consider the relation of tillage to moisture. The land 

 obtains its water from rains. This water is held in the interstices 

 of the soil, and it gradually passes off into the air by evaporation. In 

 finely compacted soils, the water which is in the lower levels is 

 gradually raised to the surface by capillary attraction. A mulch of 

 straw placed upon the surface, prevents this soil moisture from com- 

 ing into immediate contact with the atmosphere and it therefore 

 keeps the soil moist. Two to four inches of loose fine earth acts in 

 essentially the same manner, — it mulches the soil beneath by break- 

 ing up capillary attraction, and preventing the soil moisture from 

 reaching the atmosphere. This loose top soil may itself be as dry 

 as ashes, but it still conserves the moisture beneath. Every farmer 

 knows that a " baked "'soil soon becomes dry; and he also knows 

 tliat the soil underneath a well-tilled surface is always moist. It is 

 evident that, if one wishes to conserve the greatest amount of 

 moisture, he must begin his tillage early and. he must continue it 

 uninterruptedly throughout the season. Above all things, he will 

 cultivate soon after a rain, to prevent a crust from forming. The 

 past season was one of almost unprecedented drought in ]S^ew York. 

 Most farmers suffered severely, and as a result the winter meetings are 

 full of discussions of methods of irrigating lands. But the best 

 irrigation in this State, for orchards, is frequent shallow cultivation 

 — repeated every week or ten days so long as one wishes to keep his 

 trees growing. The long dry seasons of California are made fruit- 

 ful by constant tillage. By its use, orchards are now growing 

 profitably without irrigation in certain western lands where the 

 annual rainfall is said to be less than ten inches. With our thirty 

 to fifty inches of rainfall, there is little need for irrigating orchard 

 lands, if we take care of the water which we have. In the burning 

 heats of last summer, when everyone was asking for water, I visited 

 a raspberry grower, upon sandy soil, who was afraid it would ruin 

 and spoil his berries! His patch was crisp and fresh and loaded 

 with fruit. "But you must have rain to ripen your crop," I said. 

 "No," he replied, "drought never affects me. I water my land 

 with the cultivator." 



But tillage means more than conservation of moisture. It pro- 

 motes nitrification and enables the plant to unlock more of the 

 mineral elements than it otherwise could do. Every good soil is a 



