From these statements we get some idea of the amount of water the orange tree demands in the soil, and the measure of moisture in the atmosphere, to supply evaporation from its large evergreen leaf surface and fill its fruit with juice. An apple tree is not an orange tree, to be sure, but when in leaf, and bearing a heavy crop of fruit, the farmer must necessarily make large drafts on the soil to meet the surface evaporation and supply the required juice to its fruit. Every tree in leaf is a pump, constantly drawing on the soil and drying it, and in all reasonable probability the drafts are in proportion to fruit and foliage. Has any body calculated the daily demand for moisture a twenty-five-year old Northern Spy, or Baldwin, carrying twenty or thirty bushels of apples makes on the soil beneath and around it during the hot and dry months of August and September? The quantity probably is largely in excess of the common estimate, and perhaps not half required by the orange—but it is so much it affords a sufficient reason why such trees grow faster, are healthier, and bear more and better fruit, on lands that are moist, than on lands that are dry. But orchards on high lands, or on slopes, or on slopes and ridges, suffering for moisture, can not be removed to low lands, nor can they be irrigated, except at an enormous expense. What then can be done? In the first place, the annual rainfall can be held to the space it falls upon, under the tree, by the throwing up a furrow or ridge around it, as far out as the limbs extend, where the ground is level, and by a dam on the lower side, when the ground slopes. The latter could also be made to stay a portion of the rain falling on the higher ground above. Further: a general system of mulching ought to be adopted; not for the purpose alone of keeping the surface moist, but also for supplying food to the roots as the mulch decays. If the orchard is in grass, clover, or weeds, they should be mowed at least twice a year, the burden suffered to lie on the ground and rot, or be thrown under the trees. After pruning, the wood removed should either be left where it falls, or piled in heaps about the orchard and suffered to rot as in the “hammock” land orange groves of Florida, where the under brush and extra timber is rarely burned, but piled in heaps to rot away.