PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS 9 CONVENTION. 199 



ME. BERWICK. I want to ask you if you don't think a well- 

 drained soil is a warmer soil than one not so well drained, and whether 

 the plowing would not have the effect of draining the top soil? 



MR. MILLS. A soil that has too much water in it is in a very bad 

 condition for fertility, for the air can not go where water is. If your 

 soil is in that condition and there is no drainage from below, then a 

 plowing of that soil will be very beneficial, because the sun will drain 

 your soil, the winds of heaven will whistle through it and take out the 

 moisture; yet, if it takes the moisture from your surface soil it will 

 take out that which gives you the best conditions in the soil. Still, if 

 you can not get the best drainage because you have conditions of hard- 

 pan, and you can not get rid of your moisture, then plowing will do 

 good; but I never had any soil that didn't give me sub-drainage. My 

 great trouble is to get water enough in the soil. 



MR. BERWICK. But we loosen our soils in California to retain 

 moisture, and in loosening our soils in the spring I maintain we retain 

 the moisture rather than lose it. 



MR. MILLS. If you will plow your soil, disc it well, follow it up 

 with the cultivator and the harrow and keep it well pulverized and 

 get a dust mulch, and every time the rain comes again cultivate and 

 harrow, you will hold a large percentage of the moisture; it doesn't 

 get away. But I don't plow, for the reason that my cover crop does 

 my plowing, as I see it. I plow for aeration. My cover crop aerates 

 the soil. As it decays the channels open up and the water goes down 

 deep and the water fills the soil. Therefore, I get more moisture, 

 because I have a better percolation of the soil. I hold it, because I 

 have more humus. I hold it and have better conditions with the air 

 following the moisture after it has equalized itself in the soil. If, 

 however, there is more Water than there should be in the soil, it is up 

 to you or any other intelligent farmer to treat his soil in that way 

 which will bring about the best results with that particular soil. 



MR. O 'BRIEN. If I want to sow cow peas next year, how shall I 

 determine whether my soil contains the bacteria? 



MR. MILLS. If you have not grown cow peas before, you may know 

 that you have not the bacteria. 



MR. O'BRIEN. How shall I put that in the soil? 



MR. MILLS. You will send to Washington and asfi them for that 

 special bacteria. They will send them to you with minute instructions 

 how to inoculate your seed and your soil. Follow those instructions 

 carefully, and you will take your seed in due time and drill it in the 

 soil and you will find that they have increased in the soil and that 

 the bacteria begin to work on the nodules on the root, and next year 

 you will have better and better conditions. That is, however, a summer 



