154 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



can draw for supplies, instead of beino- forced to skirmish around in 

 the parched soil for a few drops of moisture, like " the ancient cow 

 with the crumpled horn, must browse on weeds instead of corn." En- 

 riching the soil in an orchard with manures, is for many an impossi- 

 bility, but a mulch answers to a great extent the same purpose, because 

 it retains the necessary " aqua vifrv,''^ and with a plentiful supply of 

 moisture, trees will flourish even in moderate soil. We have proof of 

 this in seasons of copious rains, when crops of all kinds will flourish on 

 soil which in ordinary seasons does not produce enough to pay for the 

 cultivation of it. 



The rain which falls from the skies, and the air about us contains 

 more plant food than many would suppose. Let me cite a point in 

 case. 



A noted investigator planted in a tub, in dry soil, a small willow, 

 first weighing the soil, and applying water whenever needed. In seven 

 years (if my memory serves me correctly), the willow had grown to 

 quite a tree ; it was then taken up, all the earth washed from the roots, 

 the water evaporated, and all the soil dried as before. He then 

 weighed it and found that there was but a slight loss of soil, less than 

 a pound, yet he had produced a tree which weighed nearly as much as 

 the soil in which it grew, without having added anything but water. 



There is another fact to be borne in mind, which is, that water 

 predominates largely in all vegetable matter. Take this same willow, 

 evaporate the water, burn the word and what is left ? Nothing but a 

 very small proportion of its former weight in solid matter. As with 

 the willow, so it is with the apple tree, only in a far greater degree, if 

 we include its fruit, for this contains about four-fifths or eighty per 

 cent, of liquid matter to one-fifth, or twenty per cent, of solid matter. 

 An example which forcibly demonstrated the value of mulching came 

 under my observation the past summer. In my yard is a Ben Davis 

 tree, about twelve years old, on the body of which the bark was gnawed 

 off several years ago by mules, to such an extent, that when I pur- 

 chased the place a year ago, I considered the tree past all redemption. 

 It had never borne fruit, and the limbs on the injured side, (or almost 

 one-third of the tree) were in a dying condition. The tree stood where 

 it was convenient to pile our stove wood, so last winter and spring I 

 piled wood all around it, four or five feet high, and in a radius of six 

 or seven feet. After blossoming time, I noticed that fruit had set, and 

 kept on growing, on the sound limbs, and this part of the tree not only 

 showed a considerable improvement in growth, but even the diseased 

 limbs showed renewed signs of life, and even attempted to ripen a few 



