The Early Tillage 65 



nated 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 digging out of other plants that 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 conflict 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 earth 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 contrary to the order of 

 nature. In recent years it has been proclaimed that the 

 proper treatment of an orchard is to plant it thick and 

 to allow the leaves and litter to cover the ground, wholly 

 omitting the stirring of the soil, for this is the method of 

 the forest; and forest lands increase in fertility from year 

 to year and the moisture is held in them as in a sponge. 

 The reasoning is plausible but not exact. There are two 

 ways of testing it, — by experience and by reflection. It 

 needs only to be suggested that the experiment has been 

 tried, and is now trjdng, upon an extended scale, as a 

 large part of the apple orchards of the country testify. 

 The chief beneficiaries of the experiment are the bugs, 

 mice and fungi, all of which would vote the method a 

 success. The reasons why the forest method is successful 



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