MULCHING. 411 



do no injury to the straw, but what little moisture they do give 

 is preserved much better in the straw than on bare ground. 



One objection which is sometimes raised to straw mulch is, 

 that after a drouth when the rains begin to fall the straw will 

 shed the rain away from the trees. This might be so if the straw 

 were piled close to the tree and left in a rounded up heap. But 

 that is not the way it should be put on. It should not be placed 

 against the trunk of the tree and should be thicker at a distance 

 of two or three feet from the tree. That will leave a depression 

 where the tree is, and the rain will be gathered in instead of shed 

 oflf. 



Now for some instances of personal observation of the bene- 

 fits of straw mulching: 



The fall of 1888 was a very dry one in the vicinity of the 

 home of the writer. We had decided that we wanted a row of 

 elm trees along the side of our driveway running from the house 

 north up an incline and over a gravel knoll. The ground was 

 covered with a blue grass sod, and with my present experience I 

 would not think of setting any kind of tree without better prepa- 

 ration. However, the job of setting them was given to a man 

 who was in the business, and the holes were dug and the trees 

 put in about the first of November. The ground was dry as deep 

 as the holes were dug and consisted principally of gravel. Think- 

 ing that it was rather a hard prospect for the trees after the job 

 was done, we decided to mulch them, and did so, using some old 

 straw for the purpose. 



While doing the work some neighbor passing by called out to 

 us and said, "You are spoiling your trees. That straw will kill 

 them." Not seeing how the mulch could hurt them, we went on 

 and finished the job. The trees all lived through the winter, and 

 all but two are alive yet. They have been kept mulched contin- 

 ually, and though they have passed through several very. dry 

 summers have grown well and are now about a foot through in 

 stem and twenty-five feet high. They are things of "beauty and 

 a joy" while they last. 



One more instance, and this relates to apple trees : The trees 

 were set in the spring of 1893 in pretty good soil and were 

 mulched. After the 20th of May we had no rain to speak of till 

 some time in the fall. They stood it all right and made a good 

 growth. The next summer, 1894, was the dryest ever known in 

 that locality, and from the way those trees grew I concluded 

 apple trees did not mind drouth, but now I think it was largely 

 the mulch. When the rains did begin in the fall I thought per- 



