No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 589 



type will almost always be found along the coast. Along the At- 

 lantic coast, particularly, yon will find it, and it is generally well 

 adapted for market gardening; therefore, along the coast line from 

 Maine to Florida we find the market gardens more than elsewhere. 



As we go back from the coast we find the more mountainous 

 country; here we have more of the limestone soil, and here is where 

 we get our finest fruit. The old limestone is not in every part of 

 our country. We find it in California, in Wasliington, in Oregon, 

 then in Colorado, in Michigan, then on Lake Champlain, in New 

 York, and along the Hudson Kiver \'alley, where you get this soil, 

 you can grow trees and fruit as you can nowhere else. So it is im- 

 portant that when a man is first starting to invest money in the 

 fruit business he should know something about the soil, so that he 

 may make no mistake in his location. 



Here on the chart is a form of soil known as "Hardpan." I re- 

 member a number of years ago in going over your state, I came 

 across a small stretch of country where nothing seemed to flourish 

 as it should; the farms did not show a prosperous appearance, the 

 trees and the woods looked stunted, the houses and barns were 

 small, and the people themselves were poor and not prosperous. I 

 found that the soil was made up of this type of hardpan. This 

 hard sub-soil that comes up to say, within six inches of the top 

 soil is very unfortunate for farming. You will find sections in the 

 East and in the West, with this kind of soil. Impervious to water, 

 it works like a cement floor, and is a very poor fruit soil. It is 

 ahvavs either too wet or too drv, and can not be well tilled. 



Then here is the very sandy soil, which is almost as bad for fruit. 

 It is almost always dry; the moisture and the manure applied seeps 

 through it in a short time ,and leaves it dry and crops suff'er for 

 moisture. 



Then, knowing our soil, we must begin the practice of right tillage 

 and give to plants the conditions they need. Our finest soils are 

 clay, or clay loams, but by tillage we can increase the productivity 

 of all soils. The one principle of tillage is to make available the 

 plant food that is in the soil. That is why clover is so difficult to 

 grow to-day, is because certain forms of plant life have been de- 

 pleted and acid conditions have developed that are injurious to the 

 growth of clover, which grew so luxuriantly in your state not so 

 many years ago. In the last sixteen years, since I have I)een ex- 

 perimenting with clover, I have increased the productivity of my 

 soil one hundred per cent, and I have spent but little for commer- 

 cial fertilizers, although I am a believer in them. By tillage you 

 can realize the plant food that is still abundant in the soil, and yet 

 it to work to sustain and to make large crops. 



In my orchard practice, on the farm that was owned by my great 

 grandfather, who raised hay and corn and Avheat; the same policy 

 being followed by my grandfather and father when I began to 

 farm, I found the orchards were not bearing as they should. I dis- 

 covered that the plant food had become much depleted. If you will 

 allow me a little of personal history — My father was a good farmer 

 and a good business man, and he helped others in bank backing 

 until one of these senseless panics came along ami swept away 

 his friends and accumulations. When I inherited the farm of one 



