170 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



tips. They are so delicate and easily bro- 

 ken that the soil about them needs to be re- 

 moved most carefully, which can the easier 

 be done if it is sandy ; then with the glass 

 these silky light root hairs may be seen fill- 

 ing the fine pores of the soil or enveloping 

 its particles. 



The prin- 

 cipal func- 

 tion of these 

 root hairs is 

 to absorb 

 water from 

 the soil and 

 the plant 

 food it con- 

 tains ; and 

 as the plant 

 grows these 

 multiply with 

 such rapidity 

 that they 

 w o nderfully 

 increase the 

 absorb ing 

 surface of the 

 roots. Each 

 of these root- 

 lets is but a 

 single plant 

 cell filled with that element of plant life 

 called protoplasm ; and, besides absorbing the 

 moisture from the soil, they have the won- 

 derful faculty of so dissolving much of the 

 mineral matter in the soil by their excre- 

 tions as to render it available by the plant 

 or tree. Our illustration is drawn by Frank 

 and Tscirch from wheat and turnip root tips 

 as they appeared under a microscope. They 

 will help to give our readers a fair idea 

 of these wonderful little root hairs. 



A GOOD TOOL FOR THE ORCHARD. 



THERE is no doubt that we in Ontario 

 are still behind the times in respect to 

 the tools used for orchard work. Manv still 



Fig. 



Root Hairs. 



/ 

 2575- 



I. Koots of a young wheat plant. 



(a) The sand surrounded by root hairs. 



(b) Root tips. 



II. Turnip Seedling showing root hairs. 



(After F'rank and Tschirch.) 



cling to the old-fashioned square tooth har- 

 row and the horse killer cultivator. About 

 the best tool we have adopted is the disc har- 

 row, which is certainly excellent ; but for a 

 large orchard which needs constant cultiva- 

 tion all these are too slow and cost too much 

 money to operate, in these days of high 

 wages ; and we should economise labor by 

 purchasing better implements if thev can be 

 had. 



What tools do you use in the orchard ^ 

 some one asked of Mr. Woodward. He re- 

 plied that after the four-furrow plow in early 

 spring, the only tool he used was the smooth- 

 ing harrow. This was so called because the 

 teeth could be set at any angle ; he set them 

 pointing backward at such an angle that they 

 would not gather rubbish. Each section cf 

 this harrow was six feet wide, and he used 

 three sections, thus covering eighteen feet of 

 ground at a time with a team of three horses. 

 He could cultivate twenty acres of orchard 

 in half a day with this harrow. It is not, 

 therefore, very expensive to go through the 

 orchard once every week or ten days in this 

 way, up to August ist, at which time a cover 

 crop should be sown and cultivation discon- 

 tinued. 



COVER CROPS. 



HERE is one of the puzzles of the On- 

 tario fruit grower, to know just 

 what is the best cover crop to use in the or- 

 chard. We have tried crimson clover, but 

 as a rule only, a small portion of the seed 

 grows, and the result is a cover so thin that 

 it is of little use as winter protection. In 

 one or two instances it has been a grand 

 success, particularly in the pear orchard of 

 Mr. D. J. McKinnon, Grimsby, on a dark, 

 moderately heavy soil, well underdrained. 

 Every year it has grown up thicker, and no 

 more useful or more beautiful crop could be 

 desired. 



Rye has been used by a great many, but 

 unless ploughed in very early in spring it 



