ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 39 



that there were just two states around which the horticulture 

 of this world centered, and those were the two states of Con- 

 necticut and Georgia. (Laughter.) This is the first time that 

 I have had an opportunity to come up here and see for myself. 

 I was born over in a neighboring state, where the conditions 

 are not unlike the conditions here in Connecticut, — right over 

 in the neighboring State of New York ; so that I feel that I 

 know something about the conditions which you have to meet. 



It also gives me a great deal of pleasure as a representative 

 of the National Department of Agriculture, which is interested 

 in every line of work which concerns the farmers and fruit 

 growers of the country, and I extend with a great deal of 

 pleasure the hearty greetings of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture to this Connecticut Pomological Society. 



I believe that I am to talk to you this afternoon about cover 

 crops. I will not be able to take that question up in detail, but 

 I wish to talk to you for a while about some of the fundamental 

 principles of that subject. Now in order that we may see what 

 an important place the cover crop plays in orchard economy, 

 and also to bring into relief the present condition of many 

 orchard lands, it will be necessary to pass in rather a rapid 

 review some of the things that take place in the soil. I may 

 say that all soils are made up primarily of a rocky basis ; that 

 is, the principal part of the soil is obtained from mineral sub- 

 stances which have become disintegrated through the action' of 

 the climate, water, and frost, and prepared for use through the 

 action of numerous living organisms called bacteria. In it, of 

 course, is a great deal of vegetable matter, and in that these 

 living organisms. Now besides all this, there is a varying 

 amount of water in every soil which the plants drink up, and I 

 want to pass in review some of the functions of this so that we 

 may understand a little more intelligently some of the things 

 which take place in the soil, and so see some of the important 

 points which have come to play such an important part in our 

 modern orchard methods. I suppose there is no soil in Con- 

 necticut that does not have from 2,000 to 20,000 or even 40,000 

 pounds of potash and phosphoric acid, which are important 

 elements of plant food, in every acre of ground. I suppose 

 there is no soil that on an average does not have from 20,000 

 pounds up. In fact, there are no arable soils of whicli analyses 



