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THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST, 



FERTILITY OF ORCHARDS. 



EARLY one whole morning was 

 given by the Western New York 

 Horticultural Society to the study 

 ^^^' of soil conditions for fertility. Dr. 

 Jordan, of the Geneva Experiment Station, 

 showed that this was a complex ques- 

 tion, and one that did not depend so 

 much upon the amount of fertilizing elements 

 in the soil, such as potash, nitrogen and 

 phosphoric acid, as upon physical conditions 

 which alone could enable the plant to take 

 the benefit of these substances. The im- 

 portant physical conditions were such as 

 texture of the soil, warmth, moisture, etc. 

 Without these conditions, commercial fertil- 

 izers were little use. Indeed everyone had 

 noticed that in a dry season no good was 

 perceptible from fertilizers applied. 



Water. — First, he emphasized water as the 

 most important of such conditions. The 

 amount of water extracted from the soil by 

 growing crops was much more than is 

 usually supposed ; e.g., an acre of oats, in 

 one season, would transpire 2,000,000 lbs. 

 of water. 



He explained how water was stored in the 

 soil, each independent particle of moist soil 

 being completely surrounded by a film of 

 water. Soil therefore, whose grains have 

 the largest surface to the cubic foot would 

 retain the largest amount of water. The 

 smaller the soil particles are the more the 

 surface area; thus, as King puts it, a cubic 

 foot of marbles one inch in diameter possesses 

 an aggregate surface of 37.7 square feet, 

 while if the marbles were reduced in diameter 

 to one thousandth of an inch, then the total 

 area per cubic foot is increased to 37,700 

 square feet. From these differences it is 

 evident that the amounts of water coarse 

 and fine grained soils retain will be very 

 different, and, in general, clay holds more 

 water than sand. 



The amount of water retained by the 

 particles will also be influenced by the dis- 

 tance of standing water below the surface. 

 This is what is known as the water level, or 

 the level of complete saturation. This must 

 be below the roots of the plants, to provide 

 for soil ventilation, without which the plant 

 cannot grow. 



Tillage is most important in the conserva- 

 tion of moisture. An immense quantity of 

 water is lost by evaporation, in some cases 

 as much as i 3/10 pounds per square foot 

 per day. This is prevented by an earth 

 mylch or " dust blanket," which breaks up 

 the capillarity that carries the moisture to 

 the surface and allows it to escape by evap- 

 oration. It has been proven that scratching 

 the surface one, two or three inches deep 

 will serve to prevent this escape of water, 

 and since, as shown in our notes last month, 

 the amount of nitric nitrogen is greater in 

 soil cultivated three inches deep than a 

 greater or less depth, it would appear well 

 proven that this depth of three inches for 

 summer cultivation is the best for all pur- 

 poses. 



The immense amount of water needed is 

 evident, from the fact that each ton of dry 

 matter produced uses up from two to four 

 hundred tons of water. The production of 

 four tons of Indian corn would probably 

 need from eight to twenty tons of water. 



Fruit growers must take care, said the 

 director, not to let useless crops rob the lan4 

 of the moisture needed by the fruit trees. 



Would you grow apple trees in sod ? 

 asked some one. Prof. Jordan emphatically 

 opposed such a practice. Hilgard found, 

 from actual test, that a cultivated orchard 

 had much more available water than one not 

 cultivated, in which the grass had robbed 

 the trees of their moisture. Besides, the 

 cultivated trees had made a growth of three 



