THE UNFRUITFUL TREE AND HOW TO CORRECT IT. 371 



would the florist get in growing his crops on the greenhouse 

 bench or in pots if he didn't recognize the necessity of drainage 

 underneath to give an opportunity for the air to get to the roots? 

 He wouldn't get very far. And the man who wishes to bring 

 his orchard up to the highest degree of production also must 

 provide for the aeration of the tree roots. 



That may mean tile drainage. It may mean the intro- 

 duction of more vegetable matter in the soil to make it more 

 porous. It may mean a certain amount of surface drainage. 

 But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking because we have 

 good surface drainage we necessarily have good under-drainage ; 

 the contour of the layers of subsoil or clay underlying the surface 

 doesn't always follow that of the surface. Just before coming 

 here I went into a field where we are digging a trench. There 

 is excellent surface drainage and no standing surface water 

 where we are. Only three feet below the surface we struck 

 water in this year, which has been so dry that good cisterns 

 have failed. We have found that although it has a sufficient slope 

 to carry off the surface water, this land must be tiled to get 

 best results in growing orchard trees. I don't know your soil, 

 but I can tell you this one principle of soil management, and 

 that is, to get the most out of your tree it must have air for the 

 roots. 



Secondly: Orchard soils should have a constant supply 

 of moisture because the trees take all of their food in the form 

 of soup. The Lord hasn't provided them with jaws and teeth 

 with which to masticate their food, and they must simply suck 

 it in. If you put the end of a towel in a wash basin and let the 

 edge hang over you know what it will do, draw all the water 

 out of the wash basin. In the same way the little fine roots will 

 draw up the soil water and pass it on to the trunk and branches. 



That material as it comes from the soil is not in such form 

 that the tree can immediately transform it into wood and into 

 leaves and fruit buds. It is crude material. It is, as you might 

 say, comparing the tree with a furniture factory, the lumber 

 that goes into the factory and not the finished furniture; or, 

 comparing it to a foundry, it would be the raw iron and coal that 

 you take into the foundry rather than the finished foundry 

 products. So the soil solutions are simply the crude materials 

 out of which plants are made. Where are these crude materials 

 changed into the forms that the plant can use? It is in the 

 green foliage by the help of the energy of the sun that the 



