1 46 Practical Orcharding On Rough Lands. 



in place and preventing those unsightly, incon- 

 venient and ruinous gullies. Again we grow 

 plants of the leguminous family: peas, beans, 

 vetches, clovers, etc., in order that they may 

 trap nitrogen (that most expensive element of 

 plant food) from the soil air and store it in 

 nodules on their roots for the use of future 

 crops. While their stems are of great import- 

 ance in both protecting and maintaining the 

 soil. 



Growing Plants to Supply Humus.— The 



planter who has the welfare of his trees at heart 

 will find it necessary to keep up the supply of 

 humus in the soil. Continuous cultivation 

 without the addition of organic matter, humus, 

 (decayed vegetation) will soon render the land 

 unproductive. Examples of this may be seen 

 in some of our older peach growing sections 

 where the dust mulch system was practiced 

 without the growing of either summer or win- 

 ter cover crops. This is more pronounced on 

 steep, rough lands where the humus has been 

 washed as well as worked out. We often lose 

 sight of the importance of shading our land by 

 some growing crop, for we know that hot sun 

 reduces the humus supply in our soil very fast. 

 Humus improves the physical condition of 

 the soil| thus aiding very materially in increas- 



