184 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS 9 CONVENTION. 



again and again the noxious gases. that we gave off through the hours 

 of the day from the lungs. Thus, we want the air to circulate. It is 

 true also of the soil. The soil wants aeration, it wants to be kept open 

 so that the air may circulate in it. The roots need to breathe, the plants 

 need to breathe; the bacteria give them the oxygen to live upon. The 

 soil needs ventilation — that the noxious gases, poisoning the roots and 

 poisoning the soil if it has not opportunity to get away, must have that 

 opportunity to escape. Ventilation! And, therefore, in the soil we 

 must work to keep up that condition of aeration and ventilation. 

 Humus, mixed with the earth in sufficient quantities, brings about that 

 condition. It also enables the soil to contain more water. It gives it 

 a greater absorptive power for water. 



You know, as I know, that the growth of one ton of solid matter, be 

 it whatever crop it may be, cereal or fruit, requires from three hundred 

 to five hundred tons of water, which must be pumped up by the root 

 system and root pressure and surface tension from the subsoils of the 

 earth. Now, when we increase more and more the holding power of 

 the soil for water we have done a mighty good thing for ourselves. 

 Take, for instance, one hundred pounds of sand. It will absorb twenty- 

 five pounds of water, and it will hold it for about four hours. Take 

 one hundred pounds of humus soil and it will absorb one hundred and 

 ninety-five pounds of water and hold it for weeks. Is it not, then, the 

 part of wisdom that we so cultivate our soils, so work our soils, as to 

 increase constantly from year to year the amount of humus, in order 

 that we may get a better aeration and better ventilation and a greater 

 holding power of water? 



I want to tell you an incident that happened on a certain soil down 

 south. There was a twenty-acre tract of orange grove that took an 

 immense amount of water. There we allow one inch to five acres for 

 the irrigation during the year. This twenty acres took ten times the 

 water that was allotted to it, and could not have been held in cultivation 

 if it belonged to an individual who had only the water that was belong- 

 ing to that orchard— two inches of water, four to twenty, one to five. 

 Samples of the soil were taken for eight feet down, every six inches 

 of the way. They were taken to the laboratory and put under the 

 microscope, and behold what was found ! Piles of building stone ! You 

 see on the side of the road for the foundation of a new building piles 

 of stone with jagged edges and spaces through which a cat may run. 

 Just so was that soil, not to that extent, but under the microscope seem- 

 ing like that. There was nothing but gravel. That was the trouble. 

 The humus had been worked out and had not been replaced. Barnyard 

 manure was put in the soil, covered under. Cover crops were sown, one 

 a summer crop of cow peas, the other a crop of Canadian peas, and the 

 next year this happened: They were ordered not to irrigate that soil. 



