176 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
seen, not only refuses to yield up its own stores of 
wealth, but it will delay and even preclude the good 
results from plant-foods which may be added to it. 
The first thing to do, then, is to make it possible 
for the plant to grow. Make the physical and en- 
vironmental conditions right, and the addition of 
plant-food will be felt and appreciated. The plant 
must be made comfortable before it will thrive. A 
cow will not relish even the fanciest ration if she 
shivers with cold. 
The grower must set himself in line with nat- 
ural methods. He must see that the soil has a 
good supply of humus or decaying organic matter 
(got from crops turned under, dressings of stable 
manure, muck, and the like), and that it generally 
has some cover upon it. Early in the season, this 
cover is the surface mulch of cultivated soil, and 
later it is the cover crop of rye or crimson clover, 
or something of the kind. 
Nature is a kindly and solicitous mother. She 
knows that bare land becomes unproductive land. 
Its elements must be unlocked and worked over 
and digested by the roots of plants. The surface 
must be covered to catch the rains and to hold 
the snows, to retain the moisture, and to prevent 
the baking and cementing of the soil. The plant 
tissues add fiber and richness to the land, and 
make it amenable to all the revivifying influences 
of sun and rain and air and warmth. The plant 
is co-partner with the weather in the building of 
the primal soils. The lichen spreads its thin sub- 
