640 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



have the pleasure of here addressing, and I trust I may be pardoned 

 for here turning aside to say that it is very common in agricultural 

 teaching that it is the fellow who does not need it instead of the 

 multitude that does need it, who gets it. 



We, therefore, all know of the importance of soil-moisture to 

 the horticulturist, but I am not so sure that we are all so fully 

 cognizant of the great necessity of our using every reasonable means 

 for holding in the soil, conserving the earth supply of moisture, so 

 it may to the utmost be used by our growing crops in garden, field 

 and orchard. I will doubtless be held as radical in making the 

 statement that our crops, and those of the orchard especially, are 

 almost entirely dependent upon the supply of stored soil-moisture, 

 and not upon that gathered from the rainfall during the season of 

 the crop's growing. 



If I am correct in this claim, the importance of the most careful 

 conservation of the moisture supply is paramount. If I am only 

 half-right and the good crop's success depends upon the current 

 rains partly and partly upon the earth supply, the importance of 

 the latter is not lessened in its relation to this crop. It is obvious 

 the orchard must have the earth moisture to draw upon. It is as 

 plain that without the intervening care of the orchardist the at- 

 mosphere draws upon this moisture to the loss of the crop and its 

 owner; hence we come to say how shall we best conserve the soil 

 supply so it be not wasted into the thirsty atmosphere? 



The first theory was that we shall arrest the loss by creating a 

 non-conducting object between the moisture and the air. We 

 should mulch. We should break the connection between the two 

 and allow the moisture to only reach the atmosphere through the 

 organisms of our growing crops or trees. We find this can be very 

 effectually done by frequent cultivation of the soil and men have 

 come to talk wisely and some of them incessantly of the "dust 

 mulch." 



But the time has come when other men are to be found who ques- 

 tion the wisdom or at least the economy of the "dust mulch," for 

 the young growing, unshading orchard. We have discovered the 

 soil bacterium nnd the more we study and learn about it the 

 more we are inclined to modify many old ideas that were one time 

 good enough. It appears now to be well established that our soil 

 fertility largely depends upon the bacterial occupancy of it. The 

 wise soil worker, therefore, if that be true, will use every economical 

 means to maintain in his land conditions favorable to the existence 

 and multiplication of these new-found friendly organisms; and it 

 has become a matter of considerable doubt whether we are encourag- 

 ing them when we are subjecting our unoccupied, unshaded soil to 

 the frequent stirrings necessary to keep an effective dust mulch 

 through the long season of the summer heat. 



This is not intended as an argument that we shall stop the culti- 

 vation and allow the rrust to form on the surface of the bare ground, 

 for fear we unsettled the operations of the bacteria. By no means. 

 The dust mulch saves more in its moisture conservation than is lost 

 from its bacterial disturbance; but the better plan seems to be to 

 have the ground occupied by some crop that shall at once serve al' 

 most all the good offices of a mulch, create favorable conditions for 

 soil bacteria, and as an incident and consequence of its growth 



