No. 4.] SOIL IN FRUIT CULTURE. 61 



such land may be worked is limited. It must be taken 

 just at the right time. If a clay soil is worked or culti- 

 vated when there is a superabundance of moisture, it is very 

 difficult after that to get the land in good condition, because 

 of its hard, lumpy character. Being possessed of a super- 

 abundance of Avater, being worked over at that time compacts 

 it, and as soon as it dries of course it becomes hard and 

 lum})y. Humus comes in here as a very important element 

 to have incorporated in a clay soil, because it lengthens the 

 period in wdiich clay soil can be worked, and it can be w^orked 

 with a hioher deo;ree of moisture in it. 



The feeling roots of plants are delicate, of extreme fine- 

 ness, and they cannot successfully seize upon clods or 

 large soil particles. If we were to examine the roots of 

 })lants through a microscope, we would be surprised to see 

 the large number of extremely fine, hairlike feeders that are 

 pushing out in all directions in the soil. We cannot deter- 

 mine them with the naked eye, but by putting the glass upon 

 them they present an astonishing number of these exceed- 

 ingly delicate, fine roots, upon which the plant has to depend 

 for its supply of water and of food. 



The soil particles, then, nmst be fine, loose and soft in 

 texture, for plants to obtain food, and a liberal amount of 

 humus present wdll help to produce these conditions. 



Another function of hunms is to enable the soil to hold a 

 much larger amount of moisture. In our forests the decay 

 of leaves and roots, of fallen trees and branches, for genera- 

 tions, has g'iven an amount of veijetable matter that will 

 absorlj immense quantities of water, which, during other and 

 prolonged periods of drought, are gradually given off, and 

 vegetation thereby carried on successfully in its growth. 

 Since the clearing of our forests we have exposed this sur- 

 face, Avhich has been so richly filled with the vegetable de- 

 composition of ages of time. We have exposed this, not 

 only to the sunshine, and in the breaking up of the soil to 

 the more rapid evaporation of water, but we have actually 

 worn it out, with the result that at the present time our soils 

 are compact, and water during heavy rains runs oif rapidly ; 

 it is not absorbed in the same proportion as formerly by the 



