74 STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



acid is incessantly gnawing away at the rocks in your soils, and 

 dissolving out the elements that have hitherto been locked up. 

 It may be that some present may for the first time understand one 

 of the simple, yet beautiful operations in nature which play so 

 important a part both in nature and in agriculture. You will now 

 all the better understand the reason why we have heat and cold, 

 rain and sunshine ; and how we assist nature by plowing and 

 cultivating and harrowing and hoeing our soils. We do it to 

 expose them to that all pervading substance — carbonic acid. 



Much of our pleasure in agricultural pursuits, arises from our 

 ability to trace out these hidden operations of nature. We can- 

 not and never shall know all of nature's secrets, but it is only a 

 fool that will obstinately shut his eyes to what is going on before 

 them. As the intelligent mechanic secures higher wages by 

 reason of his intelligence, so the intelligent pomologist will be 

 much more likely to succeed in fruit culture who carefully watches 

 every condition necessary for a good result. It enables him to 

 select with vastly better judgment such elements as his soil most 

 needs. lie understands fiom what has been said, that every atom 

 of carbonic acid which has been at work setting free these salts 

 from the rocks and soils has, also, produced an equivalent of clay 

 to form our clay beds. 



The apple tree can never grow and be productive in a purely 

 granitic soil. Several in)portant elements, such as soda and 

 phosphorus, so necessary for the fruit, are almost entirely absent 

 in such a soil, and no plant or tree can ci'eale an element. A 

 purely granitic soil is of rare occurrence in Maine. Occasionally 

 it may be seen in the gravelly hills ii» the western part of Oxford 

 county, and in the northerly portions of Cumberland and York 

 counties. The pine tree, requiring but a small per cent, of these 

 mineral elements, will flourish in such a soil, but not the f:pple 

 tree. 



II. SchutOHe Soils are the ruins of schistose, or coarse slaty 

 rocks. I have introduced this new word because it seems to me 

 a very convenient one in the classification of our soils. Over a 

 large portion of this State the rocks are stratified, that is, they 

 split up into thin slabs and angular fragments. When these rocks 

 are found in place, the soil above them is usually full of these 

 fragments. We call these sdiisls or schislose rocks, and the soils 

 produced from them we choose to name schistose soils. I hold in 



