THE PROPERTIES OF SOIL 31 



viding the seed with the water that it re- 

 quires. When the seed has germinated, and 

 has pushed its roots some inches into the 

 soil, the necessity no longer exists of in- 

 ducing water to rise to the point in the soil 

 where the seeds had been placed, and it now 

 becomes more desirable to conserve water 

 in the subsoil than to encourage it to rise 

 to the surface. The plant by means of its 

 roots can now draw water from comparatively 

 deep layers, and what farmers and gardeners 

 generally do at this stage is to hand-hoe or 

 horse-hoe the surface of the ground, whereby 

 the interstices in the soil are increased in 

 size. In this way the power of capillarity 

 is diminished, and water is prevented from 

 rising to the surface and escaping into the air. 

 A loose covering of well-disintegrated soil 

 is called a soil-mulch, and such a covering 

 will prevent the upward escape of water in 

 much the same way that a mulch of rough 

 manure laid upon, for instance, a rose-bed, 

 will conserve water for the use of plants 

 growing there. 



The utilization and conservation of rain- 

 water and melted snow, through the^agency 

 of cultural methods, has received much 

 attention during the past few years in most 

 of the drier regions of the world. In certain 



