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[ Watering. Whenever water is necessary it should be given 

 copiously, as slight sprinklings very frequently do more harm, 

 than good. Hoe deeply and frequently leaving the soil light 

 and porous. This is a golden rule. The ground in India has 

 always a tendency to cake from the baking effects of the sun, to 

 keep it open and porous it should always be forked after slight 

 rain, and on the day following a copious watering, nothing 

 could be more apropos than the following extract from Thomson's 

 handy-book of the flower garden on the subject. 



"Water being the chief vehicle through which food is con- 

 veyed to plants from the soil, and in the atmosphere, the pre- 

 ventive of evaporation from the foliage, in order to be beneficial 

 in these respects must be administered in such quantity as shall 

 penetrate sufficiently deep into the ground to reach the roots in 

 contradistinction to the too common method of merely painting 

 or sprinkling the surface of the soil ; and as far as watering can 

 effect the atmosphere, and feed and preserve the strength of 

 plants in that manner during hot weather, its effects must be 

 very limited indeed." 



" A mere sprinkling of the surface of the soil is productive of 

 more evil than good. In its necessary rapid evaporation, the soil 

 is robbed of its heat, and on stiff soils particularly, it leaves the 

 surface in a hard and caked condition, rendering it a better heat 

 conductor than when loose and porous ; and in proportion as the 

 heat conducting power of the soil is increased, so also is the eva- 

 poration of moisture. Therefore not only do surface sprinklings 

 evaporate with the rising of the sun, without ever having reached 

 the roots or materially benefited the plant, but the natural mois- 

 ture which may rise, by capillary attraction, is also more likely to 

 evaporate by the compact surface produced by daily sprinkling." 



One who thoroughly understands what he is about, and 

 waters, when he does water, almost to irrigation, and plies the 

 Dutch hoe among his crops, the next morning, is in a position 

 to assert that his plants do derive unmistakeable benefit from 

 watering, another who rests content with merely sprinkling the 

 surface of the soil frequently, leaving it meanwhile to become a 

 hardened crust, may assert with equal truth, that watering 

 appears to do more harm than good. ED.] 



