Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 1 43 



careful attention of agriculturists generally. 

 Remembering that all the plant food which is 

 locked up in that dry material, whether it be 

 straw, pea vines, stubble or weeds, that plant 

 food is utterly worthless until liberated by de- 

 composition. In order to hasten this process 

 we should mix or cover this material with soil 

 and this is best done by some method of culti- 

 vation. In orchards where plowing is not 

 practical .he disk harrow ma/serve Ae pur- 

 pose well. 



Cultivate to Destroy Plants.— Cultiva- 

 tion is used as the principal means of destroy- 

 ing those plants which interfere with any spe- 

 cial crop that the planter may be desirous of 

 growing. Such plants are called weeds, not 

 necessarily because of what they are, but be- 

 cause they are growing where they are not 

 wanted. "A weed is a plant out of place." 

 Too frequently the principal reason for culti- 

 vation is to destroy weeds. While we believe 

 that cultivation should be the means of their 

 destruction, we do not believe we should make 

 the destruction of weeds the principal reason 

 for cultivation, but rather try to follow so 

 closely the other reasons for cultivation that 

 there will be but few weeds to destroy. 



Cultivate to Develop Plants.— The pur- 



