At the recent meeting of the New York Horticultural Society, the everlasting topic of surface management in orchards, was of course warmly discussed - discussed warmly on both sides, says the report.

And yet it is a very simple question in the light of all that has been adduced during the last quarter of a century. It is nothing more than this : The feeding roots of trees are the small annual fibres. These love to be as near the surface as they can get, providing the temperature be not too high, food and moisture be abundant, and an absence of light. Sometimes these conditions will be best secured by a clean surface; sometimes by keeping the surface shady by vegetation. We have to penetrate into this question much deeper than the grass that covers it. An orchard in grass affords the comparative coolness required by the roots, the shade which they love, and permits, by the shade, the roots to get nearer the surface than when growing in the full light which the bare ground provides. But where food and moisture are scarce, the advantages are counterbalanced. Food and moisture are the first essentials of all good culture. A clear surface, or a surface devoted to other crops, is a secondary question.