Progressive Agriculture 115 



WATER HOLDING CAPACITY OF THE SOIL 



Some comprehensive knowledge of the different 

 soil formations and the relation of their texture to 

 their water holding capacity is quite important 

 in planning for your crop and work. Therefore, 

 they should be carefully studied. Know your 

 soil and how to use it. This will all come to you 

 through the use of the soil auger and a little careful 

 thinking. Soil of a fairly fine texture will hold 

 more moisture per cubic inch than a coarser soil. 

 For illustration, a given amount of moisture 

 might percolate eight inches in a fixed length 

 of time in a fine texture soil containing no sand, 

 while in a coarser soil containing some sand it 

 would percolate twelve inches in the same length 

 of time. In a still looser and coarser soil, the water 

 might percolate eighteen inches. The depth at 

 which the moisture is found in your soil, however, 

 does not always indicate the amount of moisture 

 there is in your soil available for plant growing; 

 neither does the fact that the finer grained and 

 more compact soil carries a higher per cent of 

 available moisture in each cubic inch indicate 

 that it will carry the crop a longer time without 

 rain unless you play your part well. Quite often 

 this finer textured soil with its higher per cent 

 of available moisture will, in a well prepared seed 

 and root bed, promote more stooling and a ranker 

 growth of the plant, thus requiring more moisture 

 to keep up the daily growth than the coarser soil 

 that carries the moisture down deeper and faster, 

 in which the return by capillary attraction is 



