134 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
when one thinks of tillage only as labor. The work 
“ must be done because, somehow, plants thrive best 
when it is done; but the sooner it is done and the 
less there is of it the easier, and what is the easier is 
the better. 
It was, no doubt, some such mind as this which 
dominated the rude farmers in the early history of 
the race. Throughout all the years until now—and, 
unfortunately, too often even now—tillage has been 
a mere necessity forced upon the husbandman by a 
most ungenerous Nature. The first tillage probably 
arose from necessity of breaking the earth to get 
the seed into it; and the second step was the dig- 
ging out of other plants which interfered with its 
growth. In many cases, still another hardship was 
imposed, for the earth must be disturbed to get the 
crop out of it. These three necessities served to keep 
the surface of tamed lands in a greater or less state 
of agitation until it finally came to be seen that 
there is something in the practice which causes plants 
to thrive wholly aside from the lessening of the con- 
flict with weeds. But it is only in the last century 
or two that there appears to have been any serious 
attempt to discover why this age-long practice of 
stirring the soil is such a decided benefit to plants. 
One reason why the art of tillage has made such 
slow progress is because it seems to be wholly con- 
trary to the operations of nature. In very recent 
years it has been vehemently proclaimed that the 
proper treatment of an orchard is to plant it thick 
and to allow the leaves and litter to cover the 
