GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF ORCHARDS. 151 



of two pieces of hard, tough timber, about two inches in 

 thickness by seven or eight inches wide, held in position by 

 the cross-bar, which is firmly bolted to the side pieces. By 

 taking out the bolts which secure the cross-bar, the wings 

 can be spread farther apart or brought nearer together, as 

 represented by the cut, copied, by permission, from the cat- 

 alogue of agricultural implements of the " Peekskill Plough 

 Works," Peekskill, New York. 



Advantage of Working the Surface. When ground is 

 ploughed in the former part of the growing season, and the 

 surface is cultivated or worked with a gang-plough every 

 two weeks during the summer, the substratum will be kept 

 so moist that the roots of growing trees will spread with 

 far greater rapidity than it would be possible for them to 

 extend if the ground were more dry and hard. Every ob- 

 serving tiller of the soil knows that ground on which wheat, 

 oats, or grass is growing, during hot and dry weather will 

 often be as dry as ashes, while the same kind of soil by the 

 side of it, which is being summer-fallowed, will be quite 

 damp. The leaves of the growing crop pump up and evap- 

 orate the moisture in the ground. By summer-fallowing 

 the ground where young apple-trees are growing, the entire 

 plot is kept moist, and as soft as the ground was early in 

 the spring. Of course soft and damp ground not wet land 

 in hot weather, greatly promotes a healthy growth of the 

 trees, so that in many instances young apple-trees will grow, 

 where the soil is thoroughly worked, twice as rapidly as if a 

 crop of grain or grass were cultivated on the same ground. 



We have heard "gentlemen farmers" contend earnestly 

 that a crop of grass, and even a heavy crop of weeds, will 

 operate in a most favorable manner in dry and hot weath- 

 er towards keeping the ground damp by the shade of the 

 leaves and branches. If the growing plants did not pump 

 up immense quantities of water, their reasoning would be 



