No. 4.] SOIL IN FKUIT CULTURE. 63 



advantages in obtaining the city supplies of manure. Now, 

 it is as vitally important that the soil 50 or 100 miles from 

 the city be kept up, as that only 5 or 10 miles away. This 

 may be done through an economical method, which I am 

 glad to be able to give to you this afternoon. Li our sy>i- 

 tem, where we use rotation in cultivation, there is no more 

 economical manner in which to keep up soil fertility, to 

 supply lost humus and add to it what it so much needs to- 

 day, — the most expensive element of plant food, nitrogen, 

 — than through the aid of leguminous plants. The clover 

 as represented in the chart fills the soil with a mass of roots. 

 The tap root goes down deep, as far as the soil is open or 

 congenial enough to let it work its passage downward. It 

 goes down and brings up the potash, the phosphoric acid 

 and some nitrogen that may be deep in the subsoil, — brings 

 it up to the surface in the construction of the plant itself. 

 Not only that, but upon all of the fine roots which are here 

 represented are the nitrogen nodules. We have heard much 

 recently of this principle of inoculation of the soil arti- 

 ficially through nitrogen bacteria, which our United States 

 Department of Agriculture has been so al)ly and so thor- 

 oughly bringing before the public. Upon its roots the clo- 

 ver plant has the ability to form these nodules, which, acting 

 in conjunction with bacterial influences in the soil, take up 

 the free nitrogen of the atmosphere, and in their disinte- 

 gration give it to the soil in the cheapest possible form in 

 which it may be obtained. In our system at " Orchard 

 Farm," which is that of fruit growing, wherever it is pos- 

 sible we co-operate with the clover plant, because of its 

 wonderful ability not only to restore to the soil an abun- 

 dance of humus, but also of nitrogen. 



Here we can see the diflference between plants. This 

 illustration represents the timothy plant. You see the char- 

 acter of its roots. Those who can see them will observe 

 that they are rather fine. They are close to the surface, 

 they do not run down deeply ; with the result that they take 

 the plant food from a very shallow surface of the soil, — are 

 surface-feeding. In following the timothy sward with corn 

 or potatoes, or with an}^ farm crop, any farmer present 



