Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 1 35 



had his lands to suflfer the almost irreparable 

 loss of soil by washing. This suggests to us 

 at once the growing of plants as soil binders, 

 plants which will keep the soil filled with liv- 

 ing roots which will be active even during the 

 winter. Plants which will be able to grow with 

 the slightest warmth of a mild winter day; 

 plants whose roots will be able to take up any 

 food that is set free by the action of the ele- 

 ments and store it in their tissues, which after 

 .hey decay, will be ready for the use of crops 

 that may come after them. Crimson clover, 

 with its long deep roots covered with nitrogen- 

 bearing nodules ; and rye with its rootlets form- 

 ing a sod that prevents washing and at the same 

 time making a growth that will aid future 

 plants by its decay. 



All these and many other things pass before 

 us and many are the pictures in our mind's eye 

 of the different kinds of care demanded by the 

 orchard, of men taking out borers, wrapping 

 the trees to protect against rabbits, etc., etc. 

 Then we see the painstaking orchardist 

 thoughtfully and carefully removing such limbs 

 as interfere with the proper development of the 

 tree. In another picture we see an orchard 

 covered or mulched with a blue grass sod. Or 

 perhaps one in which the moisture is conserved 



