New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
9 
illustration in a short presentation of the subject of intercultural 
tillage. 
Introductory. 
After six years of station work the time has not yet arrived for me 
to attempt generalization which shall embrace the whole field of agri- 
culture, despite the temptation. I feel as yet we have not sufficient 
definite knowledge, and I prefer rather the acquisition of fragmentary 
work than that of attempting to go further than the facts observed 
will bear out. I may be allowed, however, to indicate a line of thought 
which is in harmony with facts thus far observed, and which seem in 
a line of correct reasoning. 
The most potent factor in the production of crop is that of soil mois- 
ture, for without the necessary supply of water soil fertility becomes 
unavailable. The presence of water renders plant growth possible. 
The presence of water under the proper conditions renders soil 
fertility available to the plant, and under favoring climatic condi- 
tions insures full development to plant growth. To control the 
water of the soil, even to some extent, is to the farmer a matter of 
great consequence. Indeed, as a fact of observation, the local condi- 
tion of the soil as regards moisture seems to account, to a far greater 
extent than does fertility, for the variations which are so commonly to 
be observed between plants growing on the same plat and under other- 
wise like conditions, and to one who has carefully and experimentally 
studied the problem of plat experimentation, the issue becomes at once 
made and the question is forced into prominence of whether the true 
problem of crop raising should not be expressed by the question how 
to get the fertility of the soil into crop rather than how to apply 
fertility to the soil. 
This line of reasoning, based upon the physical properties of the soil, 
suggests a division of farming into two prominent propositions: 1. 
That the present farming should derive its profits from the fertility 
mined from the soil. 2. That the use of fertilizers is essential for the 
maintenance and improvement of the condition of our land. The 
corollary to these is the seeming radical conclusion that fertilizers in 
practical farming should not be depended upon for an immediate result 
in crop, but rather from the general increase of crop concurrent with 
successive years of farming. 
In order to illustrate this line of thought by a distinct example, I 
will make a short and incomplete study of the process known as 
" cultivation," based upon data accumulated by station work and sup- 
plemented by experimental observation. 
2 
