The Moisture Reservoir 83 



land is open and leachy, shallow plowing may be neces- 

 sary, else the soil may be loosened too much. The water- 

 storage capacity of most soils may be increased by put- 

 ting vegetable matter into them. It will thus be seen 

 that the methods of conserving or saving moisture must 

 be worked out or rather thought out by each farmer 

 for his own farm. 



The water of rains and snows is held on the. surf ace for 

 the time, and allowed to percolate into the soil, if the land 

 is rough and open from recent plowing, if there is a cover of 

 herbage, or if the surface is soft and mellow. Fall-plowing 

 may be advisable to catch the water of the inactive season, 

 and also to expose hard soils to weathering; and it may 

 facilitate the work of spring. But clay lands with little 

 humus may puddle or cement if fall-plowed, and particu- 

 larly if harrowed and fitted in the fall; and in the South 

 all rolling lands are exposed to serious gullying by fall- 

 plowing. In general, it is not advisable to plow fruit-plan- 

 tations in the fall, however, not only because it may too 

 greatly expose the roots to the weather, but because it 

 prevents the ameliorating of such lands by the use of 

 some incidental or catch-crop sown after the summer till- 

 ing is past. The winter covering is efficient in holding 

 the precipitated water, and the other advantages of it 

 are invaluable (as explained in Chapter IV). 



Any body or substance interposed between the air and 

 the moist soil will prevent the evaporation of the moisture 

 in that soil. The ground is moist underneath a board, a 

 layer of sawdust or ashes; and so it may be underneath a 

 layer of 2 or 3 inches of dry earth. It is expensive and 

 difficult to haul this dry earth to the land, and, moreover, 

 it soon becomes hard and dense, and is no longer a mulch. 

 It is better to make the mulch on the spot by shallow til- 



