410 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



recommended to beginners. Our orchardist views with satisfac- 

 tion his fine dust mulch and thinks, "Now I will have a week to 

 work at my corn, for that will do my orchard for a week." But 

 before night he observes a cloud in the west, and in the evening 

 a few drops of rain fall, not enough to wet the soil any below the 

 surface, but he finds on examination next morning that the sun 

 is crusting the ground, and he must do his work over or lose his 

 moisture. So he spends the day going over his orchard with the 

 cultivator again just to break the crust, and his cornfield suf- 

 fers another day for the needed cultivation. The following night 

 there comes a good shower which wets down some, and the next 

 morning he says, "What a foolish man I was, I should have 

 waited till the rain was over before stiring that soil. Now I 

 shall have it to do over again. But I will learn a lesson from this, 

 and next time I will not cultivate on the first temporary clear- 

 ing off of the sky but will wait till the rain is over, and then 

 one going over will do, while this time it takes two." So he 

 spends another day in the orchard, and the corn field suffers 

 again. 



Next time there is a shower he waits, thinking there will be 

 another soon, but the expected shower does not come. He waits 

 several days, and as it looks like rain some of the time he goes on 

 with his other work and lets the orchard go. Time slips away 

 rapidl}^ and before he knows it the orchard soil is crusted, the 

 dust mulch spoiled, and the moisture gone, and he realizes that 

 a drouth has set in, and he is caught unprepared. 



But how different is the straw mulch. We will suppose that 

 is put on in July just after a good rain, and the job is done thor- 

 oughly, placing the straw several feet out from the tree on all 

 sides and thick enough to be efifective. If more rains come the 

 straw does no harm ; if they do not come and a drouth sets in, 

 what a blessing it is to those trees ! The soil will be loose and 

 cool and moist for a long time after the drouth begins. Then if 

 this straw mulch is used in connection with thorough cultivation 

 so much the better. The straw will do its work close around the 

 trees and under the low hanging limbs, and the cultivation will 

 take care of the spaces between the trees. 



Then if cultivation must stop for the maturing of the garden 

 crops between the rows or for the press of work in harvest or 

 any other cause, the owner will have the satisfaction of knowing 

 that his straw mulch is all right if the dust mulch is destroyed. 

 Then again when those little dry weacher showers come they 



