DEEP WATERS 271 
for the trying winter. If July and August are 
very wet, growth may continue until too late for 
the wood to harden, and it consequently goes into 
winter poorly prepared to resist its rigors. The 
result is a killing back of the soft wood, but 
usually no serious loss to the trees. The effort 
to stimulate late summer growth by cultivation 
and fertilization is all wrong; use manures and 
fertilizers freely from March until early June, but 
not later. The fall mulch of manure, if used, is 
more for warmth than for fertility; it is a 
blanket for the roots, but much of its value is 
leached away by the suns and rains of winter. 
I felt that I had made a mistake in not sow- 
ing a cover crop in my orchard the previous 
year. There are many excellent reasons for the 
cover crop and not one against it. The first 
reason is that it protects the land from the rough 
usage and wash of winter storms; the second, 
that it adds humus to the soil; and the third, if 
one of the legumes is used, that it collects nitro- 
gen from the air, stores it in each knuckle and 
joint, and holds it there until it is liberated by 
the decay of the plant. As nitrogen is the most 
precious of plant foods, and as the nitrate beds 
and deposits are rapidly becoming exhausted, we 
must look to the useful legumes to help us out 
until the scientists shall be able to fix the un- 
limited but volatile supply which the atmos- 
phere contains, and thus to remove the certain, 
though remote, danger of a nitrogen famine. That 
