Tillage The Earth Mulch. 115 



Without it a good crop would be very much a matter of luck. 

 With it one may be quite successful without much rain directly 

 from the clouds. But he must know how to do it, or he will not 

 get the best results. Nature gives him the chance to manage to 

 his own advantage, but if left to herself she will be very wasteful. 

 ' ' By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread. ' ' There is a way 

 to get dominion nearly always, but we have got to work for it. 

 You can eat wild grapes for nothing, or thorn apples, but you 

 have got to work for Catawbas and Baldwins. Just so in tillage. 

 You can get some help from capillary water, free to the most 

 careless, but you cannot make it bring you success, when the 

 multitude fail, without systematic work. 



Now we can begin to, see better why the mulch of strawy ma- 

 nure or sawdust around a tree will save it in hot, dry weather. 

 Capillary attraction is constantly bringing up water. If the ground 

 was uncovered and hard, unstirred, the air passing over the sur- 

 face would dry the moisture out rapidly and the supply would 

 diminish in time, so the tree would die, perhaps. We put the 

 mulch on and this keeps the air away pretty much and the mois- 

 ture is saved for the tree. The waste into the air is prevented. 

 The mulch is coarser than the earth and the capillarity is broken 

 when the bottom of the mulch is reached. But for this the 

 water would come to the top of the sawdust and be evaporated 

 just the same. Capillary attraction works only in small tubes, 

 very small. The word means minute, hair-like. The smaller 

 the tube the higher water rises in it. 



Now let us come to the subject of this part of the chapter 

 the earth mulch. When you stir the surface of the soil after it 

 has been settled by rain, with rake or harrow or cultivator, you 

 break up the capillary tubes, so to speak. The rain has settled the 

 earth altogether, making the capillarity about the same to the 

 surface, and the water is brought clear to the surface and is rapidly 

 taken up by the air. You move this soil to the depth of an inch 

 or two and you make it coarser, less compact, and the water that 

 is constantly rising from below stops from necessity when it 

 reaches the lower part of this stirred surface, this earth mulch. 

 It is true that the inch or two that you stir dries all the faster 

 from being moved. You waste a little at first to save a greater 

 quantity afterwards. But when that little has become dry it pro- 

 tects the great mass below quite perfectly. Of course, it does not 

 do this entirely. Some air will reach the moisture and get a little, 

 and there may be a slight rise to the surface ; but practically we 

 may call this a perfect plan, it comes so near to it. It is a curious 

 fact, but science tells us what any observant farmer can readily 

 believe, that soon after a shower a cultivated field will actually be 

 drier than it was before, if we do not stir the surface. The water 

 of the rain, to put it plainly, attracts a larger flow upwards by 

 capillary attraction, and all is evaporated and wasted. I think 



