278 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



riddled, screened and strained out into the land, leaving the rich- 

 nesse and leanuesse sliding away from it." I think there can be no 

 question that the elements of nutrition are carried to the growing 

 plant through the medium of water, and from the soil in which the 

 particular plant is growing; and when the essential element of plant 

 food is exhausted it dies. Of course this principle is not applied to 

 those plants that perfect their existence in a single season. A plant 

 may be grown containing an active poison alongside another wholly 

 innocuous — one a deadly drug, the other a wholesome food, each 

 after its kind, and all from the same soil and water, and from which 

 before the growth the most cunning chemist has not been able to 

 obtain the slightest trace of many of the constituents found in the 

 plant. For instance: The willow contains carbon, potash, salicin, 

 tannin, resin, gum, wax, lignin, etc.; tobacco contains nicotine; the 

 poppy, opium; the peach, hydrocyanic or Prussic acid, each growth 

 some special product, yet we do not go to the soil from which they 

 grew to obtain them in greater abundance, or even to find a trace. 

 Why this is so no one knows. Plant product is as mysterious as life 

 itself. And while all know that no useful plant can exist without 

 water, experience teaches that each to attain its best must have only 

 as much as it needs, and where it needs it or where it can utilize it — 

 at the terminus of the root fibers, wherever they may reach. 



To many plants heat without water is much quicker death. So 

 the problem with the grain or fruit grower is, how to secui'e the re- 

 c[uired condition. Experience is a better teacher than theory. Ob- 

 servation of the formations of the most productive soils is the best 

 of all. We call certain lands rich, because crops grow more rapidly 

 than on others. We observe that the most productive soils are the 

 most porous — provided there is moisture below — the success of the 

 plant depends on its ability to keep its root fibrils, or feeders, at the 

 right point to obtain supplies of water and food, neither too wet nor too 

 dry. Soils not being of so much importance as conditions, the gardener 

 propagates the most delicate cuttings in pure sand. But experience 

 teaches him to preserve carefully the required conditions of warmth 

 and moisture. Too much of either is failure, too little fatal. So 

 the large cultivator must consider from the nature of his soil, 

 whether it requires draining or not, and if so, in what manner, 

 whether surface or underdrain. If beneath the surface, at what 

 depth, always remembering that the crop cannot live without mois- 

 ture at the ends of the rootlets, and to see that too much is not 

 taken away. 



Any open, porous soil that will not hold an excess of water 

 within too feet of the surface is sufficiently underdrained for all 

 growing crops. It might be better to have the water a little farther 

 away for some kinds of fruit trees. Some of these soils might be 

 benefited by surface drainage, if water stood later that the planting 

 season. Fertile soils are simply light, porous or friable, holding 



