Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 1 39 



the importance of soil areation than many of 

 us do. 



Cultivate to Set Free Plant Food.— Cul- 

 tivation may be used as a means of setting free 

 the plant food that is in the soil, as has been 

 said, ^^tillage is manure." While this is not 

 literally true, we must all acknowledge that 

 proper and constant tillage will increase our 

 crops. In fact proper tillage may double the 

 yield of crop as compared with that which 

 received little or no cultivation, even if all the 

 land were equal in fertility. 



Cultivate to Deepen Soil.— The import- 

 ance of deepening the soil by means of cultiva- 

 tion seems to be seldom thought of by farmers 

 and fruit growers. They too often plough the 

 same depth year after year, and not infrequently 

 by so doing they form a hard bottom or place 

 of separation between the turned furrow and 

 the subsoil, which in some cases is very detri- 

 mental to the growing crops, as it may cause 

 the water to percolate much more slowly than 

 it would otherwise have done, being held about 

 the plant roots too Tong. Again the moisture 

 will not be brought up as readily or freely 

 by capillarity as if the hard or glazed surface 

 was broken up. In one sense we can increase 

 our acreage by increasing the depth of the land 

 which we cultivate. The day has come when 



