1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 45 



My audience will now discover that I class water as one 

 of the paramount fertilizers, but before continuing I desire 

 to caution that within the limits of an address I cannot 

 present the lis^hole evidence, or treat the matter as I would, 

 and hence use but one crop, the maize crop, as illustrative. 

 I propose to only go far enough here to excite interest and 

 thought, and after making my propositions probable, pro- 

 ceed to the practical point of how to grow a crop under the 

 best auspices for success ; how to utilize this fertilizer which 

 nature pours down and lifts up to each surface ; how to 

 retrieve from abundance to secure against the calamity of 

 want. I would again remind that not only is water a com- 

 ponent of plants, but it is a conveyor for plants, bringing to 

 them matter in solution, which goes towards building up 

 structure, and acts as a conveyor within the plant, so that we 

 may say that it is the life, in the sense that we say the 

 blood is the life. I would also remind that deserts are 

 usually such, not from lack of elements of plant food, but 

 through aridity, as is evidenced by the results of reclamation 

 through the agency of the irrigation ditch or the artesian 

 well in Algeria, our western plains and elsewhere. And, 

 while digressing, I may as well remind you that all arable 

 soil contains the fertility requisite for multitudes of crops, 

 and that under artificial conditions under which water rela- 

 tions can be controlled, crops can be raised indefinitely, as 

 in China, Japan, India, Palestine, etc. Where irrigation is 

 practiced the average crop seems to have held its own for 

 hundreds, even, perhaps, thousands of years of continuous 

 culture under the trained art of native husbandmen. 



It is now necessary to consider the movement of soil 

 water, and in doing this I shall draw largely upon the data 

 accumulated at the New York Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, under my own supervision, and under immediate 

 charge of Mr. E. S. GofF, the horticulturist. 



As a general rule, the water content of the soil increases 

 as we go downward, and the undersoil thus furnishes a grand 

 reservoir of moisture which is available for the return of 

 water to the surface through the action of capillarity, when 

 not too remote, and when conditions are favorable. The 

 great loss of water to the soil is through drainage and evap- 



