30 



TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



of growers using tools and methods of twenty years ago. It can be 

 easily shown that the lack of wise use of well-known improved meth- 

 ods, entirely practical to all, costs our community not less than a quar- 

 ter of a million dollars annually — an item worth considering, especially 

 as the same relative condition probably exists in- other districts. 



No factor perhaps has helped more to gain the American manufac- 

 turer his precedence over the rest of the world than his quickness in 

 recognizing and adopting new machinery and new methods which 

 would do his work better and faster. Too much like the European 

 mechanic, we horticulturists, as a rule, are inclined to hold on to our 

 old methods because we are accustomed to them, and to our antiquated 

 implements because we have them. 



Handling the soil with reference to irrigation and cultivation, is the 

 subject assigned me, but with your permission I would like to dwell 

 somewhat on a feature of soil handling not immediately affecting irri- 

 gation or cultivation as ordinarily considered, but which I think you 

 will agree is quite pertinent to the matter in hand. The handling oft 

 the shallow clay and other soils often overlying substrata, not only 

 void of plant food, but detrimental to plant growth, found so generally 

 in the far Eastern States, requiring shallow tillage, is doubtless to a 

 considerable degree responsible for the shallow handling so generally 

 practiced on the deeper soils of the Middle West and Pacific Coast 

 States. Farmers too frequently, on removing from one locality to 

 another, where local characteristics are materially different, persist in 

 using the methods to which they have been accustomed. The mistake 

 of shallow tillage on our deep soils has long been recognized. For many 

 years, perhaps no subject has been more frequently discussed at our 

 horticultural clubs, farmers' institutes, and in the horticultural press 

 than that of deep cultivation. But in spite of the agitation, and the 

 marked advantage where adopted, it has made but slow progress. Plow- 

 ing orange orchards in our valley commenced eight or nine years ago. 

 Its practice has increased year by year, but not until the present season 

 did it become practically universal. Deep cultivation has made and is 

 yet making similarly slow progress. But it would be difficult to esti- 

 mate the benefits that have already come to our orchards from these 

 two improved practices. 



Another radical improvement in handling soils is beginning to attract 

 attention in cereal and especially in fruit farming; that is, the stirring 

 of the subsoil much deeper than is now generally practiced, even with 

 our most approved methods. The value of this especially deep tillage 

 has long been recognized and acted upon in some of the Old World 

 countries. Traveling abroad several years ago, I found myself greatly 

 interested in the preparation of seed-beds for common cereals in the 

 richer agricultural districts of Italy. I knew, of course, of their raising 



