Fall Plowing to Conserve Moisture 131 



same piece of ground ; namely, 45 bushels of barley per acre, 

 and the equivalent of 1.4 tons of hay containing 15 per cent of 

 water. Only very extraordinary seasons would by any method 

 of tillage permit this to be done. 



MEANS OF CONSERVING MOISTURE 



1. Fall Plowing to Conserve Moisture 



In those parts of the world where winter precipita- 

 tion is not large, so as to over -saturate the soil, and 

 so as to cause the running together of soils, and thus 

 destroy their tilth, fall plowing may be found very 

 desirable when its chief object is to diminish surface 

 evaporation during the winter and early spring, and 

 where it is desirable to facilitate the ready and deeper 

 penetration of the water into the soil which, during 

 the growing season, has become dried to considerable 

 depths. 



In order that fall plowing may be most effective in 

 this way, it should be done as late as practicable, so 

 that its looseness may not be destroyed by the early 

 rains, and its usefulness as a mulch thus reduced; and 

 also in order that it may allow the later rains and melt- 

 ing snows to drop easily and more completely through 

 it, when surface drainage will be prevented, and loss 

 by evaporation will be reduced to the minimum. In 

 such conditions capillarity and gravity may together 

 aid in conveying the water into the second, third and 

 fourth feet, where it will become most effective in 

 supplementing the spring and early summer rains. 



The writer has shown, in "The Soil," p. 187, that 



