200 Effects of Climate and Soil oii the Roots of Trees. 



at least three feet below the surface at the base of the trees. These trees 

 have made vigorous growth, and produce annual crops of large, perfect fruit. 

 In fact, this experiment confirmed me in the practice of thus ploughing my 

 orchard, not only to induce growth of wood, but to insure annual crops. 



In the orchard may be found rows on the flat-culture system, ranging to 

 this deep trenching as above described ; and in no case has a root been cut 

 with the plough, and yet the ploughing has been done as close to the bole 

 of the trees as possible. 



In a visit to the large orchard of W. C. Flagg of Madison County, I 

 found it the practice to plough close up to the trunk of the trees ; and, to 

 enable him to do so, the trees in the old part of the orchard, eight to twelve 

 inches in diameter, had been pruned to a height to allow the team to pass 

 close to their stems. In the new orchard, low heads and the ridging pro- 

 cess is the rule. In Adams County, Mr. Clark Cholton, a very exten- 

 sive and successful orchardist, cultivates his trees by ploughing close to 

 them. 



It will thus be seen, that, at the West, sudden changes from heat to cold, 

 from heavy rain to long parching drought, cannot have a serious effect on 

 the roots of trees, from the fact that they run deep into the soil, and are 

 thus beyond the reach of these influences. On the other hand, the open 

 winters at the East, caused by clearing away the forests, more especially 

 the hill land, expose the roots of trees that grow near the surface to sud- 

 den changes, and thus injure them. While tile draining is there an abso- 

 lute essential to success at great cost, here we can meet the difficulty in a 

 more cheap yet equally efficient method. 



Had our forest and fruit trees the same habit of root-growth as in the 

 maritime and snowy districts, we should be without forests and orchards, 

 unless we protected them at great cost by artificial means. In both sec- 

 tions, man has made almost permanent changes in the hygrometric condi- 

 tion of the climate; and it is now for us to study their effects, and to turn 

 them to our use. 



To make our orchards the most productive, we must study the soil as 

 one of the first elements of success. When we fully understand this, we 

 have the key to many of the minor details that have often perplexed us. 



M. L. Dutilap. 



Champaign, III. 



