REPORT OF STATE HORTICULTURIST. 57 



well cultivated and you will find a very different condition. 

 Stationary water that was held in the soil in the early spring 

 remains in the soil. That stationary water in the soil is the 

 reservoir from which the plant gets its water for growth during 

 the summer. If you could place a mulch over your entire farm, 

 of straw or burlap or boards, on lifting that you would find 

 moisture under it. The water that has been drawn from below 

 by capillary attraction has not had a chance to evaporate. 

 When the field is in an untilled condition the capillary tubes 

 bring the water to the surface and you lose it by evaporation. 

 If you take a brick and place it in a plate of water and leave it 

 there for some hours, you will find that the brick has become 

 damp to the top. Take that same brick and place some dry, 

 finely pulverized dirt on top and you find that the moisture will 

 come up to the top of the brick and above that the dirt is all 

 dry. 



The brick is a type of the piece of dirt. If you stir the dirt 

 with a harrow you break up the capillary tubes down three or 

 four inches. The capillary tubes draw the water up to where 

 the break is, and that blanket of fine soil spread all over, the 

 land acts as a mulch that prevents the evaporation and the 

 water that is contained in that land goes into the feeding roots 

 of the plant, out through the leaves, and you get growth. That 

 water carries with it the nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash 

 which is the food of the plant. To grow a ton of dry matter, 

 it takes 500 tons of water to circulate through the crop and go 

 off into the air through the leaves and do its work. The man 

 who neglects the cultivation of his orchard finds yellow leaves, 

 small fruit and scrubby trees. The man who cultivates it finds 

 luxuriant growth, well colored fruit and a profitable crop. The 

 man who understands soil cultivation thoroughly finds that he 

 has an abundant and profitable crop, whereas the man that 

 neglects the cultivation, as we used to do 30 years ago, going out 

 in June and plowing it and scraping it over with a harrow once, 

 does not get results. 



Ques. How deep do you plow? 



Ans. We plow our orchards about four inches. If in the 

 commencement of your orchard operations you plow 5 inches 

 and continue to plow to that depth, it will be all right, but if you 

 have been plowing four inches and then go down another inch 



