136 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



abnormal conditions, and the struggle for existence 

 is reduced to its lowest terms, for it is desired that 

 not a single plant be lost. It is simply because it 

 is impossible to imitate the forest conditions that 

 the forest methods cannot be followed in fruit 

 plantations. 



Now that we have come to understand why and 

 how it is that the stirring of the soil makes plants 

 thrive, the old-time drudgery of tillage becomes the 

 most important, the most suggestive, and therefore 

 the most difficult to properly understand and perform, 

 of all purely farming operations. If we cannot have 

 the protection of the forest cover and the forest 

 mulch, we must make a mulch for the occasion ; 

 and if we wait impatiently for results, we must un- 

 lock the granaries of the soil more rapidly than 

 nature does. We must till for tillage's sake, and 

 not wait to be forced into the operation as men 

 have generally been by the weeds ; yet, whilst we 

 have outgrown the need of weeds, we should not 

 despise them, but remember them kindly for the 

 good which they have done the race. They have 

 been an inexorable priesthood, holding us to duty 

 whilst we did not know what duty was, and they 

 still stand ready to extend their paternal offices. 



Coming, now, to the specific question of the till- 

 age of fruit lands, one is struck with the fact that 

 all kinds of fruits are commonly more productive 

 than the apple ; and a moment's reflection brings 

 to mind the fact that the apple alone is the fruit 

 which is commonly raised in sod, and which every- 



