The First Book of Farming

of Soil

E OF WATE

ake moisture from the soil. What becomes of this mois

h wax or tallow, making it perfectly tight about the stem. If the plant is not too large invert a tumbler over it (Fig. 21), letting the edge of the tumbler rest on the pasteboard; if a tumbler is not large enough use a glass jar. Place in a sunny window. Moisture will be seen collecting on the inner s

air through their leaves over nine hundred tons of water. A twenty-five bushel crop of wheat uses over five hundred tons of water in the same way. This gives us some idea of the importance of water to the plant and the necessity of

OF SOI

n the form of rain, dew, hail and snow, falling on the surface, and

THE SOILS

power to take in the rain w

G.

roots. Moisture, sent up from the roots, has been given

ERCOLATION

ke in water falling on the surface. A, san

rop off.) (Fig. 23.) Make a rack to hold them. Tie a piece of cheese cloth or other thin cloth over the small ends of the chimneys. Then fill them nearly full respectively, of dry, sifted, coarse sand, clay, humus soil, and garden soil. Place them in the rack; place under them a pan or dish. Pour water in the upper ends of the tubes until it soaks through and drips from the lower end (Fig. 22). Ordinary sunburner lamp chimneys may be used for the experiment by tying the cloth over the tops; then invert them, fill them with so

the water in so slowly that most of it runs off and is lost. Very likely it carries with it some

them, but sand is not always to be obtained and is expensive to haul. The best method is to mix organic matter with them by plowing in stable manures, or woods soil, or decayed leaves, or by growing crops and turning the

made loose and open b

ay in the bottle containing lime settles in flakes or crumbs, and much faster than in the other bottle. In the same manner, lime applied to a field of clay has a tendency to collect the very fine par

ater power to absorb or

). Watch the water rise in the soils. The water will be found to rise rapidly in the sand about two or three inches and then stop or continue very slowly a short distance further. In the clay it starts very slowly, but after several hours is finally carried to the top of the soil. Th

the water only a short

acking. This brings the particles closer together, makes the spaces between them smaller, and therefore allows the water to climb higher. For more l

est power to hold the

n the rack and pour water in the upper ends until the entire soil is wet; cover the tops and allow the surplus water to drain out; when the dripping stops, weigh the tubes again, and by subtraction find the amount of water held by the soil in each tube; compute th

took in the water poured on its surface and let it run

and tends to leach through them? For immediate effect we can close the pores somewhat by compa

which they have absorbed? Or which soils

G.

ed in place of lamp chimneys

CAPILLARI

owers of soils to take

ING AND WATER-HOLDING

in the sun to dry and notice which dries last. The organic matter will be found to hold moisture much longer than the other

ount of sand, clay, or humus which they contain, and the compactness of the partic

F WORKING SO

t has dried into an almost bricklike mass, while that which was not stirred is not so hard, though it has a thick, hard crust. The sand is not much affected by stirring when

ee, the sand and the humus checking the baking. This teaches us that it is not a good plan to work soils when they are wet if they are stiff and st

ortant, for moisture is one of the greatest fact

any source is greatest in those soils whose p

orb and hold three times as much water as sandy soils do,

on sandy soils during dry seasons is b

power to hold moisture and to absorb or soak up moisture from below. It is for th

t to pass rapidly down and be, to a great extent, lost in the s

vy showers some of the water may run off the surface. If the surface has been recently broken and softened with the plow or c

readily as the sand and holds i

nt as to how we may imp

s or plowing under green crops will cause the sand to ho