170 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the next morning. My theory was, that the cultivated surface was cooler 

 at times than the lower strata, especially at night, and that the rising 

 vapor from the earth was thus condensed at the surface. I copy from 

 my notes taken at the time. The temperature of the atmosphere was 

 82 degrees at the beginning of the experiment, dropping to 78 degrees at 

 five o'clock and to 68 degrees at sundown. The surface temperature of 

 the pasture was 110 degrees, and two feet below, 84 degrees, a difference 

 of 26 degrees. In the cornfield the surface stood at 90 degrees, and two 

 feet below, 74 degrees, 16 degrees difference. Two hours later this lower 

 temperature dropped two degrees, remained at 72 degrees, and recorded 

 that at sunrise the next morning. The pasture field dropped to 76 

 degrees at the bottom of the pipe at sundown and stood at 80 degrees at 

 the surface. In the morning the atmosphere temperature was 52 

 degrees. The surface of the com field 64 degrees, 8 degrees lower than 

 at the bottom of the tube, confirming my belief, and proving that the 

 philosophy of my theory was correct, to wit: that vapor rises at all tem- 

 perature, but on meeting a colder stratum, it parts with a portion of its 

 moisture. This is proved in your common experience. Your iron pump 

 "sweats," as you call it — that is, it is colder when pumping water than 

 the surrounding air, and water is condensed from the atmosphere and col- 

 lects upon it. Your glasses are clouded with vapor on entering the house 

 on a frosty morning. The invisible vapor arising from the earth becomes 

 visible in minute water drops, called fog, in the lower valleys. You take 

 your jug of cold water to the cornfield, and set it on the dry earth, 

 and in an hour or two the soil below it is wet from the condensed vapors 

 arising from the soil. Here is an epitome of what is going on every night 

 that is cool enough to lower the surface soil a few degrees below that of 

 the strata further down. You do artificially with the jug of cold water 

 just what nature does every cool night, and some cool days in a dry time. 

 To say that water rises by capillarity to moisten the dry earth, when 

 there is not water enough in the soil to be appreciable to the senses, is 

 neither philosophical nor sensible. You may say there is some hocus 

 pocus in the jug (and there frequently is) — that it sweats and runs down, 

 or that it leaks through the pores; but the fact remains that the earth 

 is wet under it, and I believe that it comes through the operation of 

 a natural law, and that this natural law is subservient, in a sense, to the 

 will of man. That when the Adamic decree was given that "in the sweat 

 of thy face shalt thou eat bread," the obligation to cultivate was put 

 upon us, and along with it the laws of nature were made to conform to 

 our efforts, and fulfil the promise of bread. 



I am not so pessimistic as to believe that the earth has tipped and our 

 zone changed to an arid one, or that our seasons have suffered a perma- 

 nent change. We shall again have water in the soil in excess of our 

 needs, when the question of where it comes from will not awaken our 

 interest so much as where will it go, and when? We, however, shall all 

 be the wiser for the experience we have passed through, and our experi- 

 ments, tending to a solution of the drouthy problems, ought to be set up 

 as guide posts to those who in the following years may pass through like 

 vicissitudes. 



