FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 171 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. L. G. Solomon, of Button, who was to lead the discussion, being 

 absent, Mr. K. M. Kellogg, of Ionia, was called upon in his stead. 



Mr. Kellogg: I believe the water comes up by capillary action from 

 below. There is a certain amount of evaporation, but I cannot find, in 

 my investigations, any other force, that cuts a material figure, except 

 capillary attraction. You all know that water won't rise to the top 

 unless the earth is close together. It must be firm. That is the advaii- 

 tage of rolling land. There is another thing which leads me to think it 

 is not evaporation. I made a series of experiments last year; I had the 

 moisture within one inch of the top of the ground all last year. We had 

 no rain, but I kept the water within an inch of the top. If you had put 

 that same water under hydraulic pressure, you could have pressed it out 

 of any piece of that ground, from within one inch of the top of the surface 

 to forty feet below. You could have driven the water out, and got it. 



I will take this piece of cloth here and saturate it; that is a very 

 important point in demonstrating this principle of capillarity. Take 

 this cloth and dampen it, and throw on it a little sand, and see how 

 quickly every particle will surround itself with a film of water. Not 

 moisture, not dew — it is either water or nothing. The water don't get hot 

 enough to turn it into steam, but every particle of sand will surround 

 itself with a film of water. 



Mr. Glidden: Please tell me the difference between the attraction of 

 water films and capillarity. 



Mr. Kellogg: The water films come up there, and there the water 

 will stay. It is here in considerable quantities, and a film of water sur- 

 rounds each one, but there is no current of water. Each of these water 

 films will stay there by itself. Every particle is now surrounded with a 

 film of water, and wherever those two pieces of ground are so close 

 together, that in addition to this film of water that surrounds each par- 

 ticle of sand — there is a space, for a current of water to pass — it will 

 and does, pass up. That is the advantage of rolling land. 



Another thing; if the statement is true that this water rises by eva])- 

 oration, a very conclusive argument with me is the fact that I went out 

 last summer and traced this same thing out in the soil. I dug a hole 

 where the ground had not been cultivated, until I came to moist earth, 

 and then I laid some boards over that. You all know the result, for 

 moisture will come up if you cover up the surface. The water comes up 

 from below continually, the moisture rising where it is excluded from the 

 sun, until it gets to the top. Now if this ground is dry, if it is evapora- 

 tion that comes up, wouldn't the evaporation come up until it struck the 

 loose earth, before it became moist and made the ground wet? Certainly 

 it would. 



Mr. Glidden: You dug a hole in the earth how deep? 



Mr. Kellogg: Four feet. I covered the ground over, and cultivated; 

 the ground. 



Mr. Glidden : You filled the hole with loose earth? 



