768 Rural School Leaflet 



ground looks dry on top, but beneath it is moist and will stay that 

 way a long time if we keep the surface stirred. Should it rain, the surface 

 is porous and soft and the rain sinks into it like water into a sponge. But 

 as soon as it stops raining the water begins to go out again unless we stir 

 the surface and keep the little tubes from forming. So it is easy to see 

 that if the soil is not too wet we should cultivate whenever the surface 

 gets packed so that the tubes are formed, no matter whether there are 

 weeds to kill or not. If you want to test this, leave a little strip of your 

 garden uncultivated. Pull the weeds and leave the earth unstirred. At 

 the end of the season you will find that this strip is hard and dry, and the 

 plants on it have not grown so well as those on the rest of your garden. 



If the soil in your garden is too wet, some of the water must be taken 

 out. A certain amount will evaporate from the surface if it is left packed; 

 but the best way is to drain the soil from below by digging ditches here 

 and there, or by laying tile drains, which are short sections of clay pipe 

 placed end to end in the bottom of the trenches and covered over with 

 soil. The lower end of the drain shoiild be left free for the water to 

 run out. 



Study your own soil and you will be able to tell when it has too much 

 or too little water; and you can regulate the amount a good deal by cul- 

 tivating at the right time. 



There must be available plant food in the soil. Usually there is food 

 enough present, but often it is in such a form that it will not dissolve in 

 the water and therefore the plants cannot get it. Sometimes manure is 

 mixed with soil. When the manure decays, it forms a gas that helps the 

 soil water to dissolve the plant food more readily. The manure itself 

 furnishes some plant food; it also makes a heavy soil more open or a light 

 soil more compact, in either case regulating the amount of water. Try 

 leaving a small part of your garden without manure and see whether you 

 notice any difference. 



Fertilizers are plant foods all ready to dissolve in the soil water. Some- 

 times it helps the plants to have an increased supply of food at a critical 

 time. You may test and see what your soil needs most by putting a 

 little of each kind, or mixtures of one or more kinds, of fertilizers on sep- 

 arate plots of ground growing the same crop, and watching to see whether 

 the plants grow better on some plots than on others. 



While you are growing the plants in your garden you can also be learn- 

 ing how they grow and what part the soil plays in their growth. Study 

 and observe, and you will find out many things for yourselves that it 

 would be hard for you to understand if you read about them. The ability 

 to accurately observe the things around you and to profit by your 

 observations will prove of value all through life. 



