193 2H1SS0UIII STATE HORTICULTURAL, SOCIETY. 



movement of the water is more or less active in proportion to the 

 quantity held by a soil. There is a saturating point varying- in the dif- 

 ferent soils when the water moves with reluctance. There is a power 

 directly the opposite of gravitation — the tendency to go down, namely, 

 capillary attraction, the power for liquids to raise themselves in air,, 

 like spaces or tubes. You can see this power by taking a cube of su- 

 gar and dipping the tip of it in your coffee, when the liquid will rapidly 

 rise to every part of the sugar until it is filled to its saturating point, 

 when there will be no further movement of your coffee liquids. Again, 

 the same thing may occur when you take the wick of a lai'np and as 

 soon as one end touches the oil, the oil at once rises in the wick, filling 

 all the tubes or spaces in the wick, and to that extent diminishes the 

 oil elsewhere in the lam]) ; but when saturated to full extent of the 

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

 oil will be consumed to feed the flame, and the movement of the oil in. 

 the wick will begin, which will continue as long as it burns or until all 

 of the oil in the lamp is exhaused. This is the way water and moist- 

 ure is removed from our soil. The sun is a burning fire-place ; a 

 hard surface soil with unbroken tubes or spaces, or growing plants, 

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

 voir. As long as these wicks, the crust of the soil and plants or weeds 

 — for these are wicks — remain, evaporation will continue until the soil 

 is exhausted of its water to many feet in depth. This water is being 

 removed by the sun, or heat, from near the surface, while the water 

 is being continually brought up from below to supply the suns action, 

 until eventually but little more is to be had to supply growing vegeta- 

 tion or the suns demand for water, and as a consequence all kinds of 

 crops suffer. This being a fact, it becomes the planters duty to study 

 how to stop this constant evaporation of water from our soils. To 

 stop all unnecessary evaporating is the highest duty of the planter that 

 he owes to himself and to his; for every tree, plant, spear of grass, 

 weeds of all kinds, and everj^ living growing thing is an evaporator of 

 water and moisture from the soil that it grows in, is a fact, and as long 

 as they continue to grow each of them will absorb and throw off 

 moisture is equally true. Now to stop this unnecessary evaporation 

 we find that the planter can, to a very great extent, regulate it at his 

 will. 



We find that capillary attraction goes on very easily through hard 

 but porous substances where spaces are wide apart or somewhat bro- 

 ken up. For instance, take a dry brick, place it on a wet sponge and 

 it will draw the water or moisture out of the sponge, and if placed in 



