172 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Kellogg: No, let it lie there, and the water comes up from below. 

 In the ground, not in the hole. All this does not reflect on Mr. Glidden 

 nor on me, but I believe that the experiments I have conducted demon- 

 strate that capillarity is the main force that we are to rely on. 



Mr. Glidden: Was the hole filled with sand? 



Mr. Kellogg: I will explain. You go and take a piece of ground that 

 is very dry and lay some boards down upon it. At the end of four days, you 

 dig a hole — we will say four feet deep — until you come to the moisture. 

 Then wait two or three days and dig another hole by the side of it, and 

 you will find that the moisture line is constantly working from the bot- 

 tom. The moisture line at the bottom is continually working to the top. 

 That ground is dry until you come to the moisture line, and tomorrow 

 you dig another hole, and you will find the moisture down there, and that 

 the water is working toward the surface. You will find that everywhere 

 you go. Could it be done this way, if it was humidity or the vapor in the 

 soil that comes up? It would certainly wait until it came to that cold 

 ground, made cold by cultivating. 



One year, I planted corn ; it was on clover sod and I put into that eight 

 inches of manure, and we couldn't plow it under, and so we forked the 

 manure under, and turned the sod on it, and I planted the corn on top 

 and it was ruined; now if the vapor theory were correct, it would have 

 come up through that manure. Vapor will pass from one particle to 

 another, through an opening, but the water in this case came up and col- 

 lected under the manure, and never got through one particle. It was as 

 dry as a board on top. A friend to whom I was speaking of the fact, put 

 his potatoes on the under side of the manure, and they came up all right, 

 and the water came up by capillary action, or I am fooled. People said, 

 what is the matter? what are they doing to those potatoes? and went off, 

 filled with mystery as to how the potatoes could get through. 



Another thing, if you will go out in the field where you are cultivating, 

 and where the ground is pressed down in your tracks, during the day 

 time, you will always find that ground moist on top and the water going 

 off at a great rate. If it be vapor, you have got to have a different system 

 of cultivation, and it is worth while to study this thing. If it be vapor, 

 it will go through the loose earth, and capillary action won't. 



Mr. Glidden : I am so unfortunate as to be here without any labora- 

 tory experiments to show you, and you will have to take my word on 

 some things. I think I stated in my paper that water would rise four 

 inches by capillary attraction. This is what is done here. You all know 

 in your common experience, that the moisture in your soil gets very low 

 in yonr corn field. You don't believe that the moisture in your corn field 

 gets down to the permanent supply — way down below. I don't believe 

 there are any more capillary tubes in earth than in salt or sugar or any- 

 thing else. It will come up four inches, but will it come up forty or 

 i:wenty feet? 



Now. I think I proved to you that the surface of the soil was cooled 

 by cultivation, and I proved to you that the philosophy of this thing is 

 correct — that the ascending vapors do condense upon a cool surface; 

 down at the College a year ago. when it was very cold — two degrees 

 below zero — the President said they most froze to death about the 

 grounds; in the greenhouse the water was pouring down on the inside of 



