132 Appendix. 



TILLAGE. 



Modern soil tillage has in view two chief ends, namely, to improve the 

 mechanical condition, and to Increase chemical and biological activities or 

 changes. In the growing of shallow rooted crops, tillage aims to serve both 

 purposes equally, but in the growth of the orchard crop the chief aim is the 

 latter purpose, that is, to induce vigorous chemical and biological changes. 

 The roots of the orchard crop feed so deeply in the soil that tillage operations- 

 can not be expected to greatly modify the physical conditions, except upon the 

 surface. This is one of the leading reasons why a deep, porous, well drained 

 soil primarily should be selected for an orchard site. Plowing, subsoiling, har- 

 rowing and cultivating break up the soil to a depth suitable for the root 

 systems of the cereal, root and forage crops, but such operations only serve to 

 help the orchard crop for the first few years of its growth. By the time the 

 tree comes into bearing its principal roots should be feeding in the soil far 

 beneath the reach of the plow and cultivator, and besides havoc would be wrought 

 if tillage tools were to reach among the roots for the purpose of putting the 

 soil in better physical conditions. This phase of the subject need receive 

 no further consideration here save this observation : The importance of the 

 first preparation of the soil for the reception of the trees is not to be underrated. 

 Deep, thorough tillage of a well broken and subdued soil is an essential to 

 success in the first steps of orcharding. When the young tree is transplanted 

 it undergoes a severe check to its vegetative functionings. Too much cannot 

 be done by way of putting the soil in a fit condition to favor rapid and un- 

 obstructed root growth. A point always to be kept in mind when one is dealing 

 with the problems of tree life is that a living working tree requires a more or 

 less definite amount of energy to produce new wood and leaf-growth and a 

 crop of fruit. Any object that obstructs in any way the freedom of growth, 

 or checks the supply of available food materials reauces the tree's supply of 

 energy, and thus retards its growth or croppage. Clods, rocks, puddled earth 

 particles, coarse vegetable matter and other materials may offer obstructions- 

 to the course of growth of the roots, or render the food supply more difficult to 

 obtain ; all these conditions are hindrances to the plant's best development. 

 So much of the plant's energy, best efforts, vigor, is used in overcoming these 

 obstacles that frequently the young tree fails to survive the shock of being^ 

 transplanted. Every time a young root turns out of a quite direct course in 

 its growth there is lost plant effort ; every time an absorbing rootlet is obliged 

 to encompass a elod instead of penetrating between fine particles, more plant 

 energy is wasted ; every time the roots of plants are surrounded with clods, 

 lumps and soil masses so large that the water of the soil cannot be conserved 

 against evaporation during periods of dry. warm weather, the root system re- 

 ceives a check which too often results disastrously to the young tree ; if there 

 is too much half-rotted vegetable matter in the so when the young roots 

 begin to push out the heat of this during the process of further decay may 

 rise so high as to kill the tender young roots ; or, it may drive off the soil 

 water to such an extent that not enough remains to make the mineral plant 

 food of the soil available. For the use of most plants mineral substances 

 must be in very weak solutions, as one part of mineral matter to ten thousand 

 parts of water or even as weak as one, in fifteen thousand parts of water. 



All these conditions, so unfavorable to tree growth, are eliminated by such 

 thorough tillage as should be given the soil for at least one year, and preferably 

 two or three years preparatory to the planting out of the young trees. 



A thoroughly subdued, deep, fertile friable soil worked fine is an ideal 

 place in wnich to transplant a young tree, and under such conditions there 

 is little danger of its not enduring the change. 



Tillage, for the purpose of inducing chemical and biological changes in 

 the soil, is all important to the orchardist, or other soil tiller for that matter. 

 It has been long known to students of soils that there are two classes of 



