Depth of Ground-Water.

Is there probable harm from water standing 12 feet from the surface in an orchard?  Also probable age of trees before any effect of said water would be felt by them?  The soil is almost entirely chocolate dry bog. — W. E. Wahtoke.

Water at twelve feet from the surface is desirable, and water at that point will be indefinitely desirable for the growing of fruit trees.  Of course, conditions would change rapidly as standing water might approach more nearly to the surface, a condition which has to be carefully guarded against in irrigation.  But it can come nearer than twelve feet without danger.

Summer Fallow and Summer Cropping.

I own some hill land which has been run down by continuous hay cropping.  I am told that a portion must be summer-fallowed each year, but I wish to grow some summer crop on this fallow ground that will both enrich the soil and at the same time furnish good milk-producing feed for cows — thoroughly cultivating it between the rows.  What crop would be best?  I am told the common Kaffir or Egyptian corn are both soil enriching and milk producing.

If you grow a summer crop on the summer-fallowed upland, you lose the chief advantage of summer fallowing, which is the storing of moisture for the following year’s crop.  A cultivated crop would waste less moisture than a broadcast crop, surely, but on uplands without irrigation it would take out all the moisture available and not act in the line of a summer fallow.

Kaffir corn is not soil enriching.  It has no such character.  It probably depletes the soil just as much as an ordinary corn or hay crop.  It is a good food to continue a milking period into the dry season, but you must be careful not to allow your cattle to get too much green sorghum, for it sometimes produces fatal results.  We do not know anything which you can grow during the summer without irrigation which would contribute to the fertility of your land.  If you had water and could grow clover or some legume during the summer season, the desired effect on the soil would be secured.

Soils and Crop Changes.

Peas and sweet peas do not grow well continuously in the same ground.  I know this practically in my experience, but in no book have I ever found why they do not grow.

There are two very good reasons why some classes of plants cannot be well grown continuously in the same piece of ground.  One is the depletion of available plant food, the other the formation of injurious compounds by the plants, or the gradual increase of fungoid, bacterial or animate pests in the soil, which finally become abundant enough to seriously hinder growth.  Different plants take the plant foods, as nitrogen, lime, potash, phosphates, etc., in different proportion.  More important, perhaps, is the fact that the root acids that extract these foods are of different types and strength.  Thus before many seasons it may