Water-pot and hose look foolish in the face of these figures; indeed, they are poor makeshifts to keep life in plants during pinching times.  A much more effective method is to keep the soil loose under a heavy mulch, for then the deep waters will rise.  In our climate the tree’s growth for the year is practically completed by July 15, and fortunately dry times rarely occur so early.  We are, therefore, pretty certain to get the wood growth, no matter how dry the year, since it would take several years of unusual drought to prevent it.  Of course the wood is not all that we wish for in fruit trees; the fruit is the main thing, and to secure the best development of it an abundant rainfall is needed after the wood is grown.  If the rain doesn’t come in July and August, heavy mulching must be the fruit-grower’s reliance, and a good one it will prove if the drought doesn’t continue more than one year.  After July the new wood hardens and gets ready for the trying winter.  If July and August are very wet, growth may continue until too late for the wood to harden, and it consequently goes into winter poorly prepared to resist its rigors.  The result is a killing back of the soft wood, but usually no serious loss to the trees.  The effort to stimulate late summer growth by cultivation and fertilization is all wrong; use manures and fertilizers freely from March until early June, but not later.  The fall mulch of manure, if used, is more for warmth than for fertility; it is a blanket for the roots, but much of its value is leached away by the suns and rains of winter.

I felt that I had made a mistake in not sowing a cover crop in my orchard the previous year.  There are many excellent reasons for the cover crop and not one against it.  The first reason is that it protects the land from the rough usage and wash of winter storms; the second, that it adds humus to the soil; and the third, if one of the legumes is used, that it collects nitrogen from the air, stores it in each knuckle and joint, and holds it there until it is liberated by the decay of the plant.  As nitrogen is the most precious of plant foods, and as the nitrate beds and deposits are rapidly becoming exhausted, we must look to the useful legumes to help us out until the scientists shall be able to fix the unlimited but volatile supply which the atmosphere contains, and thus to remove the certain, though remote, danger of a nitrogen famine.  That this will be done in the near future by electric forces, and with such economy as to make the product available for agricultural purposes, is reasonably sure.  In the meantime we must use the vetches, peas, beans, and clovers which are such willing workers.