PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 185 



There had been a splendid rain in the winter. The rain went down 

 along the root system, percolated deeply into the soil and filled the 

 subsoil. Every month after June there was dug a hole ten feet deep, 

 twelve feet long, and eighteen inches wide, and into that the man went 

 and examined the soil, finding considerable moisture in the subsoil, and, 

 coming out, the hole was filled. You have got your root system ; go after 

 the water ; it is there ; the function of your roots is to get water— get it; 

 and the water was held off until October, not an irrigation, constant 

 cultivation, however, so that no loss of water would take place by 

 evaporation, but that every drop of water would go through the hair 

 roots and up into the trunk and through the tree to the leaf, there 

 leaving the solutions of fertilizer to be manufactured into starches and 

 sugar and then sent back to the tree to grow its fruit ; and I have to 

 say to you that not one single leaf wilted on that twenty acres that year, 

 and only one irrigation during the summer time was given to that 

 twenty acres for two years ; and other pieces, like situated, like treated, 

 were tested the same way. A scientific gentleman was told that, and 

 he thought it impossible, but he took the trouble to go there and investi- 

 gate the conditions down thirteen feet in the soil, testing it and taking 

 it to the laboratory and estimating the quantity of water in that soil 

 subject to the root system of the tree, and his decision was. yes. you 

 can do it: yes, you can increase the absorptive and holding power of 

 your soil by filling it with humus, so that in an occasion of distress you 

 may be able to save your orchard without irrigation through a season. 



The power of absorbing water is eight times greater in a humus soil 

 than in a soil without humus. To get the best out of your soil you must 

 have friability, tilth — I thought there was an Englishman here who 

 might have heard that word and raised his eyes to find out what was 

 the matter. We call it pulverization, we call it friability, fineness of 

 soil. Take a cubic inch of soil. It presents but six sides to the hair 

 roots of the plant. But divide it up into as fine particles as you can by 

 proper cultivation and you will find that there are three million sides 

 to the cubic inch which can be touched by the hair roots of the plant and 

 the fertilizer taken from it that was in the soil moisture. Take a cubic 

 foot of soil and. if I mistake not, I have seen somewhere that when it 

 is divided into that fineness which you can get by proper manipula- 

 tion of the soil it will present to the root system sixteen acres of surface. 

 Think of it, that when you take that soil and divide it it will spread 

 over sixteen acres ! I don 't think I am exaggerating. I tried to lay my 

 hand on the authority this afternoon. There are some here who know 

 and they can contradict me if it is not true. 



Observe then. You go into a field. It has been plowed wmen it is a 

 little wet ; there are lumps the size of your hat, the size of marbles and 

 on up to six inches or more in diameter. You know T that you can not 



