222 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
catch or cover crops must be used. Following the 
early tillage, he can sow rye, and plow it under very 
early in the spring. Now and then he can use a 
fall erop of sowed corn or oats, or something of 
the kind. After a time, he may be able to get 
the land in such condition of tilth as to secure an 
occasional stand of crimson clover. This practice, 
continued judiciously for a few years, ought to radi- 
cally change the character of the land; but all this 
will be of little avail unless the plowing and cul- 
tivation can also be done in a timely and_ intelli- 
gent way. All this will take time and patience. He 
may wish that there were some short-cut and lazy 
way of improving this land by making some appli- 
cation of fertilizer to it, but there is not. The 
most he can do is to slowly bring it into such 
condition that it will pay to put concentrated fertiliz- 
ers on it. In short, the first step in the enrichment 
of unproductive land is to improve its physical con- 
dition by means of careful and thorough tillage, by 
the addition of humus, and perhaps by underdrainage. 
It must first be put in such condition that plants 
can grow in it. After that, the addition of chemi- 
cal fertilizers may pay by giving additional or re- 
dundant growth. All this means that no amount 
of penance in the way of applications to the land can 
ever atone for the sins of poor tillage; or, farm- 
ing cannot be done by recipe. 
The gist of the whole matter respecting the use 
of fertilizers is that the grower should experiment 
with his plantation, adding a little more of this 
