.VOTES AND COMMENTS. 



IDEAL TILLA(JE. 



A GREAT change has come over the 

 ideals of the Ontario fruit grower 

 during the last fifty years. Formerly fruit 

 trees were planted in the corners of the 

 snake fences because they were supposed to 

 need no cultivation, and the apple orchard 

 was seeded down to orchard grass, never to 

 be broken until the trees had to be taken out 

 on account of old age. 



Now we find the orchard will repay the 

 owner for the most careful and thorough 

 tillage, unless the desired results can be at- 

 tained in some other manner. The ideal 

 tillage of an orchard begins as early in 

 spring as the soil can be worked, before it 

 has begun to lose its moisture, and continues 

 durirLg the growing season of the tree or 

 plant, which ends in July or August. 



As has been shown in these pages by Prof. 

 Re)-nolds, the rainfall in most parts of On- 

 tario is amply sufficient for all vegetation, if 

 it can be kept in the soil and not lost by 

 evaporation or by cropping before the time 

 when plant grow'th should cease and the 

 wood mature in preparation for winter. Con- 

 stant shallow tillage, by spreading a dust 

 mulch over the soil two or three inches in 

 depth, will wonderfully retain this ^noisture 

 in the soil beneath, where it can be used by 

 the trees or plants. 



MANURE AND MOISTURE. 



THIS conservation of moisture becomes 

 doubly important when we under- 

 stand the relation it bears to plant nourish- 

 ment. All plant food is taken up in solu- 

 tion, so that if moisture in the soil is lack- 

 ing during the growing season to dissolve 

 the mineral plant foods, the trees and plants 

 will get little benefit, no matter how much 

 fertility may be in the soil, or how much fer- 

 tilizer may be applied. In this possibly we 

 may find an explanation of the frequent dis- 

 appointment in the use of commercial ferti- 



lizers, which, in a dry soil, might remain 

 sometime unused. 



CONTROLLING THE MOISTURE. 



ON the subject of controlling soil mois- 

 ture the Farmers' Advocate makes 

 the following pointed remarks : 



Someone has said that the best crop to 

 grow in an orchard or fruit plantation is 

 cultivators. That is especially true this 

 year, for it is seldom w-e experience such a 

 dry spring, and the beginning of summer 

 seems to bring no improvement in the situa- 

 tion. Now is the time moisture is needed. 

 Trees and bushes and plants are now push- 

 ing their growth.. Where fruit bearing has 

 begun, an additional burden is imposed. In 

 the absence of rain, we must do w^hat we can 

 to get moisture from the air, and hold what 

 we have by means of the dust blanket or soil 

 mulch, a frequent and shallow stirring of the 

 surface soil. We cannot control the rain- 

 fall ; irrigation is hardly practical here, and 

 entirely out of the question over the parts 

 where the land is rolling, but we can exer- 

 cise a great deal of control over the moisture 

 in the soil by frequent cultivation. It is the 

 next best thing, and a means whereby we 

 can do a great deal to counteract the effects 

 of drouth. I believe the time is near at hand 

 when we shall be doing this with our grain 

 crops as well. The question of controlling 

 the moisture is one of the biggest ones con- 

 fronting the Ontario farmer to-day, as well 

 as the fruit grower. We must use the cul- 

 tivator. 



OPCHARD TILLAGE AND MANAGEMENT. 



HP. GOLXD, assistant pomologist in 

 • the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, in Farmers' Bulletin i6i, 

 " Practical Suggestions for Fruit Growers, ' 

 treats on tillage as follows : 



As a fundamental factor in progressive 

 orchard management, systematic tillage is a 

 practice of comparatively recent introduc- 



