134 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



when one thinks of tillage only as labor. The work 

 must be done because, somehow, plants thrive best 

 when it is done ; but the sooner it is done and the 

 less there is of it the easier, and what is the easier is 

 the better. 



It was, no doubt, some such mind as this which 

 dominated the rude farmers in the early history of 

 the race Throughout all the years until now and, 

 unfortunately, too often even now tillage has been 

 a mere necessity forced upon the husbandman by a 

 most ungenerous Nature. The first tillage probably 

 arose from necessity of breaking the earth to get 

 the seed into it ; and the second step was the dig- 

 ging out of other plants which interfered with its 

 growth. In many cases, still another hardship was 

 imposed, for the earth must be disturbed to get the 

 crop out of it. These three necessities served to keep 

 the surface of tamed lands in a greater or less state 

 of agitation until it finally came to be seen that 

 there is something in the practice which causes plants 

 to thrive wholly aside from the lessening of the con- 

 flict with weeds. But it is only in the last century 

 or two that there appears to have been any serious 

 attempt to discover why this age -long practice of 

 stirring the soil is such a decided benefit to plants. 



One reason why the art of tillage has made such 

 slow progress is because it seems to be wholly con- 

 trary to the operations of nature. In very recent 

 years it has been vehemently proclaimed that the 

 proper treatment of an orchard is to plant it thick 

 and to allow the leaves and litter to cover the 



