138 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 



old to the new farming, and they have been planted 

 seriously, with the expectation of profit, the same as 

 the grain crops have. Peaches had passed out in 

 most parts of the east, and they are now coming 

 in again with the new agriculture. At the present 

 time, men buy farms for the sole purpose of raising 

 fruit, a venture which would have been a novelt3 r 

 fifty years ago ; but the habit of imitation is so 

 strong that the apple planter patterns after the old 

 orchards which were grown under another and now 

 a declining system of agriculture, and many of 

 which are still standing on the old farms of the 

 northeastern states. The apple orchard, therefore, 

 upon the one hand, and the well -tilled vineyard upon 

 the other, are the object lessons which illustrate 

 the faults of non- tillage and the gains of tillage. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TILLAGE.* 



Tillage may be defined as the stirring of the soil 

 for the direct purpose of making plants thrive. Its 

 immediate effect is to ameliorate and modify the soil 

 itself, but its secondary effects are those which are 

 desired, and which are also intimately concerned in 

 the welfare of the plant. For example, tillage is 

 capable of lessening the capillarity of the surface 

 soil, and from this there may result a saving of 

 moisture from evaporation, and it is the moisture 



*The reader who desires the fullest and best exposition of tillage in its va- 

 rious aspects should consult "The Soil," by King, and "The Fertility of the 

 Land," by Roberts. 



