136 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



report. In a controversy of any kind terms must be defined, 

 and to properly understand an experiment the conditions 

 under which it is undertaken must be considered, and I hasten 

 to these tasks. 



Is it necessary to define tillage? The definition is short 

 and clear. To till is to plow, cultivate, or to hoe the soil. 

 Tillage is an humble word, with its flavor of soil and its sug- 

 gestiveness of sweating toil, but it is an old word and should 

 be an honored one. It has rendered mankind untold and 

 untenable service ; it is practiced wherever there is agricul- 

 ture in the world, and nearly all of the plants which minister 

 to the needs of human kind have been improved by tillage. 

 To plow, . cultivate, or hoe. to turn and stir the soil, and so 

 improve the crop, or so improve the soil, these simple oper- 

 ations were the beginnings of agriculture and the beginnings 

 of civilization, and they have been the chief tasks of all civ- 

 ilized peoples. Tillage is so universal, and is so essential a 

 part of agriculture, that those who oppose it for any domes- 

 ticated plant should look well to its origin, to its history and 

 to its present place in agriculture before banging it and bat- 

 tering it and charging it with evil. 



There are two words to define in the compound term, 

 sod-mulch. Sod is soil made compact and held together by 

 the matted roots of living grass. A mulch is an organic 

 material placed about trees to prevent evaporation and to 

 furnish humus. The sod-mulch advocates divide into sev- 

 eral sects in their manner of making use of sod and mulch. 

 One sect keeps sheep on the sod, another pigs, and still 

 another cattle. Another says, cut the grass for a mulch, 

 while still another says the grass is not sufficient and must 

 be supplemented with straw, or manure. Most recent of all 

 is a new sect, those who would use stone for a mulch, who 

 want an everlasting mulch ; the founder of this sect is now 

 preaching "stone-walls about apple-trees." Some of the sec- 

 tarians in these several denominations of sod-mulchers, say 

 that the apple trees, to receive full benefit from their method 

 of culture, must be planted in sod and ever after left there, 

 and that if a man is once indiscreet enough to till his orchard. 



