STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 177 



once formed, the callous and the short root surface will throw out 

 new roots with the greatest ease. 



Cultivating is one of tiie necessities for the growing of abundant 

 crops, and if properly performed, all the moisture in a soil will be 

 retained for the use of the crop to be grown. Cultivation acts benefi- 

 cially, too, in other directions, for by loosening the soil it allows the 

 air and warmth to penetrate more readily to the roots. 



Rain as it falls is taken up by the soil, and is gradually carried 

 down by the power of gravitation. This continual movement of the 

 water is more or less active, in proportion to the quantity held by a 

 soil, for there is a saturating point, varying in different soils, when 

 the Avater moves with reluctance. 



There is, however, another power, the very opposite to gravitation, 

 the tendency to go down, namely: capillary attraction — the power for 

 liquids to raise themselves in hair-like spaces or tubes. You can see 

 this power by taking a cube of sugar and dipping the tip of it in your 

 coffee, when the liquid will rapidly rise to every part of the sugar, 

 until filled to its saturating point, when there will be no farther 

 movement. Again the same thing occurs when you take the wick of 

 a lamp, and as soon as one end touches the oil, the oil at once rises in 

 the wick, filling all the tubes or spaces, and to that extent diminish- 

 ing the oil in the lamp; but when saturated to the capacity of the 

 wick, all movement ceases. Light, however, the end of the wick, 

 when oil will be consumed to feed the flame, and a movement of the 

 oil in the wick will begin, which will continue as long as the light 

 burns, until all the oil in the lamp is exhausted. 



This is the way water is removed from the soil. The sun is the 

 lamp, a hard surface soil with unbroken tubes and spaces, or growing 

 plants, are the wicks, and the soil, to a number of feet in depth, is the 

 reservoir. As long as these wicks (the crust of the soil and plants) 

 remain, evaporation will continue until the soil is exhausted of its 

 water to several feet in depth. Thus water being removed from the 

 soil near the surface, the soil below yields up part of its moisture to 

 make both equal. 



This being a fact, it becomes a study how to stop this evaporation; 

 and we find we can do very much in that direction, for there are cer- 

 tain conditions which almost cut off evaporation entirely, as you can 

 easily test for yourself. We find that capillary attraction goes on very 

 easily through hard but porous substances like brick, loaf sugar, hard 

 or compact earth, etc., but with difficulty in loose substances, where 

 spaces are wide apart or broken up. For instance: take a dry brick, 

 place it on a wet sponge, and it will draw the moisture out of the 

 sponge; and if placed in the sun will evaporate the water in both in 

 a short time. Reverse the order, put a dry sponge on a wet brick and 

 no water will be taken up by the sponge, and if placed in the sun, the 

 sponge will protect the water in the brick from being evaporated. 

 Thus it is, that by plowing we break up the hard crust (a favorable 

 condition for capillary attraction), with its tubes and small continu- 

 ous spaces, changing it to a loose earth (without continuous spaces 

 for the water to climb in), which acts like the sponge and forms a 

 mulch to protect the moisture from the sun and stop evaporation, for 

 there is no water to evaporate — the wick is cut off. That lands culti- 

 vated, but not planted to any crops, retain their moisture all Summer, 

 many of you have observed. The conditions, however, are quickly 

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