Saving the Water. 143 



usually comes at the best season, for it is the period 

 of inactivity, when the work of the farmer aud the 

 growth of the plants are least interfered with. If 

 we, in the east and south, were perfectly certain that 

 we should have no rain from June until September, 

 we should carefully husband the rainfall of the 

 earlier months, and we should suffer little loss ; but 

 now that we expect rain all summer long, we neg- 

 lect the saving of the early rains, and gamble upon 

 the chance of having a rain when we shall need 

 it. It often happens that the dry countries suffer 

 least for water! 



How shall we save the water? By holding it in 

 the earth. If the earth is finely divided and yet 

 compact, the capillary pores or interstices will hold 

 enormous quantities of water. If, then, we break 

 up these interstices next the atmosphere, we shall 

 prevent the water from passing off by evaporation. 

 The whole subject of the saving of moisture, there- 

 fore, falls into two means, the catching and holding 

 of it (or the making of a reservoir), and the pre- 

 vention of evaporation. It is, therefore, a question 

 of plowing and then of surface tilling. It will thus 

 be seen how futile it may be to try to save the 

 water by beginning tillage late in the season, when 

 a drought is threatened. If the land has not been 

 well prepared, there may be no water to save by 

 that time. It may either have run through the 

 land into the drains, or it may have evaporated 

 long before the farmer saw the need of saving it. 



The hard-pan may be so near the surface that but 



