394 The Ohio NaturaliaL [Vol.XIT, No. 1, 



sary to give results as accurate as possible, but our figures indicate 

 that most plants would fail to secure soil moisture or would secure 

 it with difficulty at the depths tested on the dates on which the 

 samples were taken in 1908. Our data are valuable only when 

 con-elated with the observations below regarding the character 

 of plants that were able to remain green above ground throughout 

 the season of 1908. 



Related to the lack of rain after May 2, 1908, stands the fact 

 that corn planted after the middle of Ma}- came up very unevenly 

 and in some fields scarcely at all. Much of the corn failed to 

 produce ears and drie>1 up in August. Other fields, often near the 

 poor ones, made a good showing of ears. The difference was due 

 in part to difference in tending as well as to local climatic and soil 

 conditions. The crop reports probably overestimate the amounts 

 harvested in Butler Count}- in 1908; but the bushels per acre 

 reported for some of our principal crops for 1908 and 1909 

 respectively, are winter wheat, 16.2 and Ki, oats 10.4 and 33, 

 com 28.1 and 34, potatoes 44.0 and 73. Winter wheat was a very 

 unpromising crop in the fall of 1908, and much that was sown did 

 not germinate until the following February. In some fields the 

 seed failed completely in the fall. But a heavy snow came in 

 January, 1909, and when this disappeared early in February, the 

 seed had germinated; and in many places the fields were green 

 with wheat about an inch high. Frost killed much of this, and 

 the prospects were very poor. But the spring rains came, and the 

 wdieat stooled so that 25 and 30 stalks from one kernel were 

 reported by reliable agriculturists. Thus, fields that were so 

 thin in early spring that it seemed scarcely worth while to let 

 them stand produced about a normal amount of straw, but too 

 many stalks from a single kernel for a good yield. So the effect of 

 the drought of 1908 was felt in the wheat crop of 1909 as well as 

 in that of 1908. Of the other three crops, the average for 1908 

 was little more than half that for 1909, according to the statistics 

 for the two years. 



The pastures were browm and the grass dead above ground 

 from the middle of June until late in November. The timothy 

 and blue grass of the hay fields were dead above ground soon 

 after the hay was cut. From the middle of August until Novem- 

 ber, the country, except cultivated fields, presented the appear- 

 ance of a desert with scattered vegetation consisting of xerophytes 

 with succulent stems, deeply penetrating roots, tough exteriors, or 

 milky juice. In open fields, along roadsides and in yards and 

 gardens were seen conspicuously resisting the drought, dandelion 

 (Taraxicum officinale), mullein (Verbascum thapsus), moth 

 mullein (Verbascum blattaria), wild carrot (Daucus carota), milk 

 purslanes (Euphorbia maculata and E. preslii), amaranths 

 (Amaranthus retroflexus, A. blitoides and A. graecizans), asters 



