The way a few black walnut trees in my
apple orchard have snapped their buds and grown in response to the
nitrate of soda that has been put upon the apple trees beside has been
little short of astounding. The way a poor little starveling persimmon
wakes up when the same treatment comes along, is equally interesting. I
cannot speak definitely yet about the influence of fertilizer on the
Persian walnut or the pecan.

In connection with the fertilization matter, it is well known that a
crop of clover or other legumes is very important as a part of the
rotation of crops in plow agriculture. Similarly I expect great value
can be obtained in our pastured and fertilized nut orchards if we so
treat the soil with lime, phosphorous, and whatever else is needed, to
give a good mat of white clover and other legumes which are undoubtedly
a good nitrogen supply for trees whose roots interlace with theirs.

Similarly I see great possibilities in the interplanting of some
leguminous crop tree such as the honey locust or the Kentucky coffee
bean in our nut orchards. It is true neither of these trees has yet been
selected and developed to the crop point, but they are much more
promising than Sargent says the wild Persian walnut was at its
beginning. It is an established fact that a non-leguminous plant can
take nourishment from the nitrate-bearing nodules on the roots of
adjacent living legumes, to say nothing of its well-known ability to
feed upon the nitrate collections of legumes that have lived in past
seasons within reach of its roots. Thus the interplanting of a legume
and a nut tree seems to promise a continuous supply of the all-important
nitrates for the nut tree.

_The Question of Moisture._

It is not necessarily true that a tree gets a low percentage of the
local rainfall because it is not plowed. The last palliation, or is it
provocation, that I would throw into the camp of the orthodox and the
worshippers of the plow, is the water-pocket, or small field reservoir,
draining a few square rods and holding hard by the roots of a tree a few
gallons or a few barrels of water which would otherwise run away. I
showed this association a number of photographs of these water-pockets
last year. Their most extensive American user, Dr. Mayer, considers them
successful from the tree's standpoint and profitable from the economic
standpoint. Since the great virtue of cultivation is the conservation of
moisture, I will submit that this