Soils and Soil Management 65 



97. "Dry-land Fanning." In some sections of the 

 country where the rainfall is so light that the trees and, 

 other large plants requiring large amounts of water, 

 will not grow, the soil mulch has been found to be an 

 excellent conserver of soil moisture. A crop is grown 

 only every other year. The fields are divided into 

 two parts. One is planted in grain, and the other will 

 be harrowed after each rain, or oftener, to form a mulch. 

 In this way, the water is stored up one season for the 

 next season's crop, and from twenty-five to fifty bushels 

 of grain to the acre are harvested every other year. If 

 a crop were grown every year on all the land, the yield 

 would not average ten bushels per acre. 



98. How Plants Dry the SoiL Do plants take moisture 

 from the soil faster than ordinary evaporation? To get 

 an answer to this question, fill four tomato cans with a 

 good garden loam. In one plant nothing; in another, 

 forty or fifty grains of oats; in another, five or six grains 

 of corn. Put an elder stem or hollow cane on the side 

 of each so that the plants can be watered from the 

 bottom. If we put water on the surface, a crust will 

 form that will cause the water to evaporate much faster. 

 (Do any of our experiments justify this statement?) 

 Pour just enough water down the tube to make the 

 soil reasonably moist, but not too wet. Set in a warm 

 place, and, when the seedlings are half an inch high, 

 weigh the cans and determine the loss of moisture in 

 the usual way. Keep the cans in a place where the 

 plants can get a good light, but not where the sun 

 would heat the earth too much. Sum up your results 

 at the end of the first week, and answer the questions 

 given above. Likewise, at the end of the second week. 

 Can you explain the bad effects of weeds in dry times. 



