TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 



119 



will gather their nitrogen supply, after it has decayed and 

 nitrified in the soil. The longer the plowing, decay and ni- 

 trification are postponed, the later will be the growth. 



Now the first plowing breaks up the surface soil, which 

 has been packed by the winter, and makes a six-inch mulch 

 over the great soil reservoir below, and light surface tillage 

 following makes a fine mulch over the four or five inches 

 of tilth. Gradually the tilth gets firm again, and so becomes 

 a better carrier of water, but the dust mulch up to the first 

 of July or later protects from excessive loss of water by soil 

 evaporation. By this time an abundant water supply be- 

 comes less needed in ordinary years, but here again there is 

 no cook-book receipt. In a very dry summer I have seen a 

 peach orchard tilled constantly until the middle of August. 

 As a result it kept green and yielded a full peach crop, wbile 

 neighboring orchards turned yellow and fruit shriveled on 

 the trees. No serious winter injury followed. 



Up to this point, the work has been to keep soil water 

 from loss by evaporation. Then follows a leguminous cover - 

 crop, which has at least four uses. It diminishes the solu- 

 ble plant food in the soil and so slackens the growth of the 

 trees, giving them time to mature their new wood ; it gath- 

 ers nitrogen from the air for the next year's apple or peach 

 growth ; it makes a mass of easily rotting vegetable matter 

 to be changed hereafter into humus, and so increases the 

 power of the soil to hold water; and it holds the soil from 

 washing. When the soil has been well filled with humus, 

 and in a wet season, an early sowing of rye or oats may an- 

 swer quite as well as a legume, because it will draw more 

 heavily on the water and surface plant food of the soil, and 

 prevents too much late growth and seasoning of the new 

 wood. 



Now as to chemical fertilizers in orchards. While sta- 

 ble manure has shown its great value both as a fertilizer and 

 conserver of moisture, its cost and the cost of putting it on 

 will prevent its extensive use by orohardists, and commercial 

 fertilizers and cover crops will have to be our main depend- 



