54 TEANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



do. This difference can be regarded as an infinitely wise provision, 

 rather than a defect. It conveys the promise of reward for dili- 

 gence and mental physical activity, where sloth and indolent avarice 

 will be " left " to bitter but well deserved disappointment. While 

 we expect but mere germs for reproduction on these forest trees, and 

 their highest usefulness to us is found in their dead carcasses, with 

 only incidental shade and beauty, when in their prime, we may con- 

 fidently pronounce the fruit of the apple tree, and its numerous 

 auxiliarie-^, the lever that elevates as on a physical plane above the 

 primitive and gross ''hog-and-horainy " age, with its degenerate 

 craving after alcoholic stimulants. Is the difference not well worth 

 some extra work ? Could we reasonably expect regular crops of 

 fruit with the same labor as would produce a grove of forest trees? 

 Is it visionary to expect results in proportion to our efforts in this 

 direction? Is it visionary to plant a large orchard on the plan of 

 this departure, when I see plain decay and destruction all around me 

 by the old methods? Is it safe to estimate that this departure will 

 be twenty years on the road to general acceptance and practice, and 

 will witness still more and sorer disappointments, of the few who 

 now have promising young orchards, and may never reach the average 

 farmer? The apple tree must and will have a share of dissolved 

 plant food from the surface soil. This, a dense mass of grass roots, 

 or a tramped and baked surface, will prevent from reaching the apple 

 roots originally grown for surface feeders. Put a plow into your 

 old orchard sod, as shallow as you can split it, and you will cut a 

 large mass of ample roots. Where do they come from and what do 

 they come for? There was not one of them when you quit culti- 

 vating, whether at four, eight or twelve years age of trees. At 

 least I have never found one in my ten-year-old orchard. They are 

 sprouts from horizontal roots and perhaps extensions from former 

 terminals, that seem to be sent up to get a share of the nourishment 

 referred to, before the grass roots shall have appropriated all. Said 

 a distinguished doctor to me as we passed a stately old apple tree, 

 full of very small fruit, and making no wood growth, as plainly 

 indicated by the color of the leaves : " What is the matter with 

 that tree, what makes the fruit always so small?" I answered, 

 "Starvation!" "Tut! tut! man," saicl he, "what do you mean? 

 Do you see that grass and clover, at least two tons to the acre ; do 

 you call that land poor?" I said: " No, the land is rich, but the 

 tree cannot eat green grass, and the grass roots are too numerous 

 for the tree to get all the nourishment it rec^uires, and is therefore 

 starving almost as effectually as your horse would if you tie up his 

 head and turn him loose in that luxuriant grass." 



But some of you will say : " We have lost oar trees largely by 

 hard winters, and the remnants are so badly damaged that they 

 might as well be dead, [f we had cultivated as you advocate, they 

 would have been still more liable to get killed even in moderate win- 



