CAMPBELL'S SOIL CULTURE MANUAL 127 



attraction, when the loss was a little over one quart. It 

 was then lifted to three and then to four feet, and when 

 rising four feet by capillary attraction the loss was a little 

 over a pint to the square foot. This shows clearly why 

 uur crops may suffer so quickly even after we have had 

 considerable rain. 



The experience of the writer in his own work in 1894, 

 demonstrated clearly these two facts: First, that moist- 

 ure will evaporate very quickly when soil is left in its 

 natural condition; second, that a large per cent of moist- 

 ure can be stored in the ground. In that year there was 

 no rainfall after early May or during the month of June, 

 and the average field was practically dry when the first 

 rain came on July 7. At that time the fields were flooded by 

 a rain of four and a-half inches which came down quickly. 

 In the fields where we were conducting experiments we 

 had previous to this time got the moisture down nearly 

 three and a-half feet, and the surface was in the best of 

 condition to absorb the fresh rain. In eight days the 

 ordinary field was again practically dry. In such fields, 

 owing to the great resistance of the dry soil, percolation 

 was very slow, and the extreme heat which naturally fol- 

 lowed quickly evaporated all the water which had fallen. 

 But the field we had been carefully cultivating and had 

 prepared for just such an emergency, was found to have 

 a moist soil over two and a-half feet deeper than before, 

 or down to a depth of six feet. 



During the season of 1901, there were many demon- 

 strations of the remarkable results following extra work 

 clone just at the proper time. A farmer near Fairmont 

 cultivated once more after a heavy rain which came about 

 the middle of July, after the farmers in that locality had 

 "laid their corn by." This extra cultivation; which could 



