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have been familiar from boyhood. I have heard it from the 

 lips of old men, and I have seen it repeated in agricultural 

 reports. During this long period, I think a good many per- 

 sons must have proved it to be true. I have never seen a 

 denial of it, nor do I believe that any experimental evidence 

 of its fallacy has ever been adduced. But if this idea be 

 correct, why is it not more generally acted upon ? Why, 

 for instance, during the last two months of drought, have 

 our Essex farmers been looking in mute despair at their 

 ■wilting corn and withering vines, instead of pushing through 

 the rows every few days with plough, or cultivator? The 

 explanation of this fact I consider to be, simply, a want of 

 faith. To most people the thing seems unreasonable — in- 

 credible. AVhy disturb the arid soil, when there is no mois- 

 ture in the air to go down, and, apparently, none in the 

 ground to come up ? 



And yet science and observation have not only verified 

 this doctrine, but they explain it. There is, you know, an 

 element in all productive soil, from which plants derive much 

 of their support, and which is called geine or humus. When 

 atmospheric air, or rather when one of its constituents, unites 

 with this substance, the products are carbonic acid and water. 

 Careful observation has shown that on ground recently stirred, 

 950 pounds of water rise hourly from a single acre. That is 

 to say, the result of this surface-agitation is a daily production 

 of more than eleven tons of water to the acre, all of which 

 passes off by evaporation — not to mention what goes into the 

 thirsty spongioles and rootlets, or what still remains in the 

 ground. 



Let us suppose now that you have, at command, a port- 

 able, perennial, inexhaustible, wheel -mounted fountain, as 

 compact and as easily worked as the plough or cultivator, 

 and that by simply running it through your drills and rows, 

 you could give them all the moisture they need for a week ; — 

 would you let such a machine stand idle, while your corn and 

 potatoes were drying up before your eyes ? I trow not. But* 



