194 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS * CONVENTION. 



We will commence plowing about the middle of January and finish 

 before the first of March. The cover crop ought to be turned under 

 before it goes to seed. You ought to have your cover crops in, your soil 

 well disintegrated and in a perfect condition of tilth, warm, so that it 

 will absorb the winter sun, so that the bacteria will be active, so that 

 in the blossom time your trees will get all of the food that it is possible 

 for them to get and all of the moisture ; whereas, if you leave the cover 

 crop there to absorb the moisture your tree will not get that which it 

 needs in that particular period of its existence, the most important 

 period of its existence, the setting of the crop and holding of the same. 



MR. CRANDALL. How can that be overcome, when you have no 

 means of irrigation excepting by periodical storms and the rains do not 

 come early enough in the fall to start this vegetable growth — until, 

 perhaps, after the first of the year ? 



MR. MILLS. Then, truly, you have a condition which we have not 

 got. If you can not start your cover crops until the first of January, 

 if your conditions are not like ours, then I would wait until the summer 

 time and I would put in, if I could get irrigation water, the cow pea 

 and grow them, as I have repeatedly, in the orchards. 



MR. CRANDALL. I believe you will find that in the greater portion 

 of the State the water is periodical, and we can only get it when it 

 comes and it doesn't come just when we want it. 



MR. MILLS. That is, you irrigate in heads ? 

 . MR. CRANDALL. Shut off in September and do not get it until 

 February. 



MR. MILLS. We shut it off in September, but if we need it in 

 October we turn it on. 



MR. CRANDALL. But the rains do not come early. It is only the 

 later rains that we get in the greater portion of California that I have 

 visited, except in some of the more favorable valleys. 



MR. MILLS. Then I could not possibly tell you what I would do ' 

 under those conditions. It is for you to solve that question. This is 

 true, that here in the north — I see in the papers that the very condition 

 of which I have been speaking has already come. A man from Sonoma, 

 writing to the Rural Press, stated that his crops were decreasing, that 

 his soil was becoming worked out, and that he believed he was losing 

 his humus, and asked for some information about the growth of cover 

 crops. If you have not got sufficient rains to grow them, I don 't know 

 what I would do. I believe if you would use the burr clover before your 

 water is turned off, completely saturate your soil and thoroughly culti- 

 vate it in order to hold an immense amount of water in the soil, plant 

 upon that immediately your cover crop, so it will make a growth of 

 six or eight or ten inches before the soil becomes dry — that is the way 



