38 



small scale, as an artifice of the skilled gardener in his very 

 restricted area. The efforts made to put it in practice in 

 Californian orchards and vineyards have been limited 

 through the extreme danger of destruction by fire which a 

 large stratum of inflammable mulching material must always 

 threaten. Still, cases are reported where it is in use on 

 hill $lope cultivation, where the chances of a disastrous 

 wash-away are to be reckoned with, and it has proved 

 quite successful for the double purpose. 



42. Now just what the gardener in a small way over 

 a few square yards can accomplish with a mulch 

 of straw-refuse, the farmer can effect nearly as per- 

 fectly by making a mulch of his own powdery soil. 

 If the top tilth is constantly kept broken up into 

 fragments and never allowed to skin over into a close crust, 

 it will almost as effectually check loss of deep seated 

 moisture by capillarity as would a mulch of straw-yard 

 sweepings. This then is the main reason why in all modern 



orcharding on the large scale, the cultivator* is kept con- 

 stantly going in the intervals between the rows of trees. 

 Its eager teeth, like crooked chisels, cut into the soil some 

 three or four inches deep, and being chamfered off laterally, 

 the little broken lumps slip away sideways and lie atop of 



* Figure represents the cultivator without the usual front (wheel. The cut is 

 kindly lent by Messrs. Lloyd, Burg Street, Cape Town, the agents for the imple- 

 ment. Thy invariably send it out for Cape use with the front wheel. 



