PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 195 



we do it. We saturate our soil, then we cultivate it thoroughly and put 

 in our crop. 



MR. PEASE. I would like to ask one question that applies in the 

 south. What, in your opinion, is the effect on the coming crop of very 

 late plo wing-in of the cover crop, say plowing-in as late as April ? 



MR. MILLS. I will say no effect. Now, I will explain myself. Last 

 year it was a mighty big effect. It cost us tens of thousands of dollars, 

 for the reason that the cutworm moth laid eggs on the cover crop. They 

 hatched, and we got myriads of the cutworms, and they devoured our 

 ripe crop in large quantities and devoured our young fruit. Plowing 

 under in April. I have found to do no injury, if I could keep my soil 

 moist enough and warm enough. I do not plow my cover crops ; I turn 

 them under. A cover crop does the work of plowing. It goes deep 

 down and plows your soil deeper than any plow made. I do not cut 

 my soil more than five or six inches, and then I use my discs and disinte- 

 grate the soil and make a mulch of it, and it is a mulch that gives me 

 power to hold water, and my root system in its digging down, eighteen 

 inches, or two feet, or three feet, allows the water to percolate deep into 

 the soil, and as the water spreads through the spaces between the grains 

 of the soil, the air follows deeper down and I get a finer aeration. I 

 need the air, I need the oxygen to set it afire, as it were, to start 

 fermentation and to give me that which I need in the organic acids of 

 the soil. I do not think I have suffered any loss, yet I say that this 

 year our cover crops will be turned under by the first of March, because 

 we will avoid any loss from the cutworm, and if there is any difference 

 it will not be a detriment,' because my soil will be warmer, my cultivator 

 will make more fertilizer available. This is true, that a cultivation of a 

 budded crop is as good as a fair application of nitrate of soda. It pays 

 to cultivate and cultivate and cultivate. The finer you cultivate up 

 and down through your orchards, the better your conditions, the better 

 your crop. 



MR. PEASE. The reason I asked that question is because we have 

 parties down there who have said that owing to the fact that they 

 plowed their orchard late in April they had come to the conclusion that 

 the trees would inevitably drop their fruit. What was the trouble with 

 them, was it because the ground was allowed to get too dry ? 



MR. MILLS. If any man will plow an orange orchard or any other 

 orchard in the month of April, eight inches deep, he will certainly 

 greatly injure it. He has cut off the feeding roots that are near the 

 surface. It is warm there and naturally all the feeders come up into 

 the warmer soil and get most of their food there, and if he goes in and 

 wickedly cuts eight inches of soil at that period he will lose, and he 

 ought to lose. 



