Cultural Suggestions 171 



When it rains all over the ground, this spread out absorption 

 is of course not possible. The surface being wet all over, water 

 must go down — which makes the difiference between real rain 

 and the make-believe rain sprayed from the end of a hose. Give 

 up the thought of watering anything — unless it may be some 

 especial thing that according to its cultural directions does 

 require watering, and turn attention to tilling. This is the great 

 conserver of moisture. The garden that is well tilled will never 

 suffer during any ordinary drought. 



It is as old as the everlasting hills, that phrase "tilling the 

 soil, ' ' yet it is only lately that there has been a general reawaken- 

 ing to the great importance of the operation thus expressed. 

 Thorough tillage means ground surface always loosened. This 

 provides a Uttle blanket of earth through which the sun cannot 

 draw the precious water back up again, after the earth has drunk 

 its fill, and the rain has ceased, and he has come out to lord it 

 over everything once more. For that is what happens ; the rain 

 comes down and the parched earth takes it in like a sponge, 

 and it sinks down deeper and deeper, as long as it goes on raining. 

 After weeks of rain the ground is wet to a great depth. 



As soon as the rain is over, however, and the sun begins to 

 shine, the contrary movement of the moisture at once begins. 

 First that at the top moves up and off into the atmosphere, 

 under the sun's vital pull; then that that is lower down feels the 

 force, and so on imtil every bit of moisture from the deepest 

 part has traveled back up to the surface and off again — every 

 bit that is, that has not run away in springs and streams to the 

 rivers and the sea. 



The only thing in the world that will stop this upward move- 

 ment is tillage. Tillage does it because it moves the upper 

 particles of earth so far apart that capillary attraction cannot 



