THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 37 



discovered the world's greatest want, and secured a hearing through 

 the columns of the Tribune, speaking to hundreds of thousands of 

 readers, and although it was the merest mention yet a beginning 

 was secured. Just at this time also, our eldest son, Asher P. Cole, 

 of Brooklyn N. Y.,forwarded to us Mr. Stewart's work from which 

 extracts are frequently found along the pages of this volume. 

 Scarcely had we opened it, when the following lines attracted our 

 attention : 



" The summer rainfall in our climate is rarely, if ever, adequate 

 to what would be a maximum crop consistent with the possibilities 

 of the soil." 



This was not news to us since we had found out that a single 

 hill of cucumbers would drink a half barrel of water in three day's 

 time, and having done so, would begin languishing for want of 

 moisture, and failing to secure it, die in a week. In this connection 

 note the amount of absorption of water by plants in the following 

 extract from the Country Gentleman under the caption of " Import- 

 ance of Water to Plants," which appeared subsequent to the an- 

 nouncement of " The New Agriculture" to the world. The italics 

 are ours : 



"In experiments performed by Sir. J. B. Lawes he found that 

 most plants exhaled during the four or five months of their growth 

 more than 200 times their dry weight of water, drawn up from the 

 soil in which they grew. Dr. J. H. Gilbert stated that the amount 

 of water given off by plants during growth might be approximately 

 estimated as equal to a depth of three inches of rain for every ton 

 of dry substance grown. Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert found by act- 

 ual experiment that a crop of hay growing on land that had been 

 manured, and giving about a ton and a half per acre, evaporated 

 two inches more water than an unmanured crop of less than a third 

 of a ton. These two inches were equal to 200 tons of water. A heavy 



