CHAPTER XIV 



WINDBREAKS 



Steady winds blowing across the garden will often 

 take away a great deal of moisture from the soil and 

 stunt the plants. Hedges and other protection against 

 the wind will be a great help, and will protect the 

 surface of the ground for a distance of ten to twenty 

 feet, for every foot in the height of the fence. All 

 the old Dutch and English gardens are surrounded 

 with hedges, which break the force of the wind in 

 the garden. The amount of water saved in this way 

 can be roughly estimated by this small experiment : 



Take a pail and a plate, and fill the plate full of 

 water and put the same amount of water into the 

 bottom of the pail. Measure the amount of water 

 and then place them side by side in the garden ex- 

 posed to the same conditions as the plots. Each 

 twenty-four hours measure the amount of water left 

 in both the plate and the pail, noticing which evapo- 

 rates the faster and how much faster one evaporates 

 than the other. If the water in the pail stays longer 

 than the water in the plate it is because the sides of 

 the pail protect it against the wind. This will be a 

 good lesson in windbreaks. 



This experiment can also be tried on the window 

 sill of the school-room. 



80 



