Capillary Movements of Soil Moisture. 17i 



201. Heavy Soil Mulches May Strengthen the Capillary 

 Rise of Soil Moisture. Since capillary action is not as 

 strong in a dry as in a well moistened soil it should be 

 anticipated that any condition which would maintain a 

 fair degree of saturation in the surface one to three feet 

 of soil would permit it to bring up from below, for the 

 use of crops, a larger supply of capillary water. 



On three different kinds of soil, where the ground had 

 1/oen cultivated during the season in alternate groups of 

 four rows 3 inches deep and 1.5 inches deep, the distribu- 

 tion of moisture, on July 16, was found to be as follows: 



Table showing the effect of mulches in strengthening the capil- 

 lary rise of soil moisture. 



This table indicates that the 3-inch mulch, by main- 

 taining the surface soil more moist, enabled capillarity to 

 bring up from below a larger supply of water; that is, 

 the maintaining of a relatively high per cent, of moisture 

 in the upper two feet of soil makes it possible, through 

 capillarity, for crops to utilize a larger amount of the soil 

 moisture which is stored in the deeper layers. This 

 view is confirmed by the fact that, in the fields of the ta- 

 ble above, the largest yields of corn were in all cases taken 

 from the ground cultivated 3 inches deep, where the up- 



