AMOUNT OF WATER USED BY PLANTS. 11 



age must labor more intelligently, must greatly increase 

 the productive capacity and value of his land, and must 

 employ a larger amount of capital in money, or its equiva- 

 lent in labor and skill, than he has hitherto done. One 

 of the means placed in his hands, by those circumstances 

 which ever favor the enterprising and industrious man, 

 to employ all these, is to make use of the supply of water, 

 from springs, wells, and streams, which may be available 

 to nourish and increase his crops when rain is withheld, 

 and their growth is consequently arrested. 



H A P T E K II. 



IMPORTANCE OF AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF WATER. 



Water is not only necessary for vegetable growth, but 

 it is well established that to a great extent the amount 

 of growth depends upon the quantity of water supplied 

 to a crop. Years ago, when a large portion of the coun- 

 try was covered with forests, and when the cleared soil 

 was well filled with the decaying remains of the removed 

 woods, the produce of the newly cleared fields was more 

 than double that of to day. Then the soil was absorbent 

 of water, it was not subjected to the influence of sweep- 

 ing winds; the rain-fall was held in the soil for a longer 

 time, and did not pass off in immediate freshets and 

 floods. Consequently the crops had a constant supply of 

 water, and their yield was a maximum one. As a coin- 

 cidence might be cited the comparatively large average 

 yield of the soil, in the so-called moist climate of England 

 and Ireland. " So-called moist," because, as it happens, 

 the annual rain-fall in our so-called dry climate, is near- 

 ly, if not quite, double that of Great Britain. Here the 

 rain-fall is over 40 inches in the year, there it is not much 

 over 20 inches. But the English climate is insular, and 



