160 Appendix. ^ 



work their soil more thoroughly during the season than the earthwonrt 

 works under a pile of grass or weeds. The ground is honeycombed and 

 the soil is thoroughly worked over, brought to the top and back again 

 by the insects. This lets the air into the soil, and by digging down 

 into it you can easily see that the root system is deeper instead of being 

 at the surface. I have every reason to believe that one grat advantage 

 of sowing red clover with timothy is that the deep roots of the clovsr^ 

 when they decay, open passages down deep into the subsoil, while the 

 timothy roots follow. My own mulched trees appear to make their 

 best growth later in the season than those that are cultivated, and yet 

 I notice that they always harden up the wood and are seldom, if ever, 

 injured by frost. 



CROWBAR PLANTING. 



I am very confident that the root system of a tree can be deepened 

 by cutting the roots closely, to short stubs, and planting in small holes; 

 with the dirt packed hard around the roots. I will go so far as to say 

 that this system of planting seems to be an essential part in successful 

 sod or mulch culture, more so, I think, than where the trees are to be 

 cultivated. We have also found that the use of lime seems to be of 

 special benefit in connection with a thick rotting mulch. If a man 

 were to start out to grow trees in this way by simply sticking them into 

 the sod, without mulch enough to keep the ground moist, I should think 

 it would be the worst thing he could possibly do. He would do much 

 better to plow and cultivate those trees, or never plant them out. To 

 make a fair comparison with cultivated trees we must, as I have said^ 

 use what amounts to a small haystack around each tree. I don't believe 

 that the mulch system is adapted to all conditions. There are, without 

 doubt, some sections where thorough culture is more sensible. You 

 cannot lay down any cast-iron rules for growing a tree, because soil, 

 climate conditions and varieties of trees all differ. On some level, 

 naturally moist lands, which are naturally grass lands, I can understand 

 why sod, not mulch, would pay better than cultivation, especially in 

 a very wet season. The constantly growing grass would take the 

 surplus water out of the soil, as I believe the trouble with such soils 

 is not that there is need of more water, but that there is too much^ 

 When, however, the drought comes, such soil, left by itself, appeared 

 to be the worst possible place for trees to grow, because it bakes up- 

 as hard as a brick. I have found that such soils, especially where they 

 are close to rocks, are greatly helped by a thick mulch. Therefore, in 

 a wet season I would let the grass grow, while in a dry time I would 

 cut it and pile it around the trees. I think the best success with the 

 mulch system will be found where we can start the tree with roots 

 closely pruned and keep it mulched. 



ORCHARDS ON ROUGH LAND. 



This mulch method can be used to good advantage on the rough or 

 steep lands where cultivation would be out of the question. The trouble 



