INFLUENCE OF WATER 17 



from place to place. It is Nature's means of keeping a 

 constant supply where plants can use it. Capillary water 

 is the chief source from which plants derive their supply. 

 So important is capillary water that crops grown on 

 moderately fertile plots where water was supplied as 

 fast as plants could utilize it, produced more than four 

 times as much as the same crop grown in an adjacent 

 field under ordinary conditions. The reason for this is 

 simply that during all the growing period rains do not 

 come at the right times. This naturally prevents the 

 plant food from becoming available every day as the 

 growing plants demand. It is like stuffing a boy one 

 day and expecting him not to get hungry for a week. 

 Feed the boy what he needs each day, and he grows into 

 a strong man. So it is with plants. 



B 



The picture (A) of the tube filled with fine soil particles 

 with the clods in the center illustrates very common 

 conditions in plowed ground. The clods in the center 

 prevent capillarity between the upper and lower portion 

 of finely pulverized soil. Consequently, the moisture 



