52 THE AMERICAN APPLE ORCHARD 



A loose, well-cultivated, thoroughly pulverized soil 

 acts like a sponge : it takes up the water as fast as it 

 falls. A hard, uncultivated soil acts like a block of 

 wood: it grows damp if left out in the rain, but re- 

 quires more than ordinary means to squeeze any water 

 out of it after the shower is over. 



If the field is supplied with underdrains, as perhaps 

 in most cases it should be, the spongy, well-cultivated 

 soil protects them from flowing while the rain is fall- 

 ing, and gives up to them the excess of water more 

 slowly afterward. The rains are thus made to do 

 better service. 



3. Cultivation releases new plant food in the soil. 

 Any good agricultural soil gives up its store of plant 

 food very slowly. The so-called exhausted soils in 

 many fields still contain food enough to grow good 

 crops for hundreds of years, only it is not available. 

 There is enough plant food in the broken stone ballast 

 on a mile of good railroad track to grow a luxuriant 

 row of apple trees and to ripen abundant crops for a 

 century. But, aside from other inconveniences, the 

 principal drawback to the railroad ballast as a medium 

 for growing apple trees is that it lacks pulverization. 

 In every way cultivation feeds the plants by making 

 available more of the chemical elements naturally in 

 the soil. 



4. Cultivation helps the crop to appropriate any 

 fertilizer which may be used. The frequent stirring of 

 the soil brings new particles of fertilizer into contact 

 with the air and with the rootlets of the trees. The air 

 and the root acids break up these particles of plant 

 food so they may be absorbed for the nourishment of 

 the tree. 



