138 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
old to the new farming, and they have been planted 
seriously, with the expectation of profit, the same as 
the grain crops have. Peaches had passed out in 
most parts of the east, and they are now coming 
in again with the new agriculture. At the present 
time, men buy farms for the sole purpose of raising 
fruit, a venture which would have been a novelty 
fifty years ago; but the habit of imitation is so 
strong that the apple planter patterns after the old 
orchards which were grown under another and now 
a declining system of agriculture, and many of 
which are still standing on the old farms of the 
northeastern states. The apple orchard, therefore, 
upon the one hand, and the well-tilled vineyard upon 
the other, are the object lessons which illustrate 
the faults of non-tillage and the gains of tillage. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TILLAGE.* 
Tillage may be defined as the stirring of the soil 
for the direct purpose of making plants thrive. Its 
immediate effect is to ameliorate and modify the soil 
itself, but its secondary effects are those which are 
desired, and which are also intimately concerned in 
the welfare of the plant. For example, tillage is 
capable of lessening the capillarity of the surface 
soil, and from this there may result a saving of 
moisture from evaporation, and it is the moisture 
*The reader who desires the fullest and best exposition of tillage in its va- 
rious aspects should consult “The Soil,” by King, and “The Fertility of the 
Land,” by Roberts. 
