DEEP WATERS 271 



for the trying winter. If July and August are 

 very wet, growth may continue until too late for 

 the wood to harden, and it consequently goes into 

 winter poorly prepared to resist its rigors. The 

 result is a killing back of the soft wood, but 

 usually no serious loss to the trees. The effort 

 to stimulate late summer growth by cultivation 

 and fertilization is all wrong ; use manures and 

 fertilizers freely from March until early June, but 

 not later. The fall mulch of manure, if used, is 

 more for warmth than for fertility ; it is a 

 blanket for the roots, but much of its value is 

 leached away by the suns and rains of winter. 



I felt that I had made a mistake in not sow- 

 ing a cover crop in my orchard the previous 

 year. There are many excellent reasons for the 

 cover crop and not one against it. The first 

 reason is that it protects the land from the rough 

 usage and wash of winter storms; the second, 

 that it adds humus to the soil ; and the third, if 

 one of the legumes is used, that it collects nitro- 

 gen from the air, stores it in each knuckle and 

 joint, and holds it there until it is liberated by 

 the decay of the plant. As nitrogen is the most 

 precious of plant foods, and as the nitrate beds 

 and deposits are rapidly becoming exhausted, we 

 must look to the useful legumes to help us out 

 until the scientists shall be able to fix the un- 

 limited but volatile supply which the atmos- 

 phere contains, and thus to remove the certain, 

 though remote, danger of a nitrogen famine. That 



