64 CLIMATE AND RESOURCES OF 



verized soil sooner than through a denser, and that advantage 

 might be taken of it to carry out a system of subsoil irriga- 

 tion, by which water might be economized, and at the same 

 time the surface-soil not be hardened. On a lawn which had 

 been regularly irrigated, and the soil hardened, I dug drains, 

 laid down tiles, and filled in the drains with the loose soil. 

 The tiles were laid some fifteen inches below the surface, and 

 were loosely put together, so that water might easily escape. 

 I made a reservoir, and the drains all branched from it ; and 

 from the reservoir all the drains could be supplied with water. 

 It was reversing the system of subsoil drainage. The drains 

 were to convey water to the subsoil and irrigate it, instead of 

 conveying water from the subsoil and making it dry. In 

 practice I found the surface of the soil over the drains was 

 dry, but the surface on both sides at a little distance from 

 the drains was wet ; the moisture rose to the surface where 

 the soil was hard and consolidated, and was then exposed to 

 evaporative influences, but it had not risen to the surface 

 where the soil was loose this showed the difference in the 

 power of capillary attraction possessed by the same soil under 

 the different conditions of pulverization and consolidation. 



On a previous page, after stating how trees had been killed 

 by heat in the Budaon district in 1868 and 1869, I said it was 

 remarkable the trees so killed were on low land with a 

 hardened surface-soil, and no trees were killed on the high 

 lands with a loose sandy surface-soil. 



The spring level being nearer the surface-soil of the low 

 lands than of the high lands, it might be supposed the 

 trees would suffer on the low lands to a less extent than 

 on the higher land ; but we find the reverse to be the 

 case. The increased amount of moisture rising to the surface 

 in hardened soils by capillarity and being carried away 

 by evaporation, accounts for the greater damage done to 



