86 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
Fig. 1 A Native Apple Tree and a Pioneer in the Barly Days in Connecticut. 
Years of Age. 
pears, a soil which will furnish sufficient 
nutriment to the tree for two or three 
generations. It suggests the importance, 
also, of sufficient moisture, for soil depth 
is of little value unless the sub-soil or 
under stratum contains sufficient water 
to hold plant-food in solution. Many or- 
chards are being planted in places where 
they will grow fruit successfully for 20, 
25 or 30 years, but not for a longer period, 
beeause a few feet below the surface there 
is a stratum of rock or of hardpan, or 
perhaps there is not sufficient seepage to 
moisten the soil a very great depth and 
the food substances in the soil are not 
available. Especially is this so in the 
arid and semi-arid regions where it is 
necessary to resort to irrigation to grow 
fruit successfully. Then, too, in these 
At Least 150 
Conn. Sta. 
irrigated sections there are many places 
where there is sub-irrigation and the soil 
is wet to a very great depth. This may 
be considered desirable if there is not 
too much water to injure the tender roots 
of the trees. 
In West Virginia I have observed 
that in every case where the orchards 
were from 50 to 75 years old they have 
been situated where the soil was deep 
and where there was seepage enough to 
supply the root. system with more mois- 
ture than generally falls on the surface; 
that when the orchards were planted on 
situations where there was no seepage, 
and where the rock came near the sur- 
face, the orchards were dead. In 1905 I 
visited a number of farms where 40 years 
before there were flourishing orchards, yet 
