MULCHING, SHADING, AND WATERING. 243 



Water is beneficial to plants as a vehicle for conveying 

 all soluble matters which form the food of plants, 

 whether they be animal, vegetable, gaseous, or earthy. 



Other elements being present in sufficient quantity, the 

 growth and health of a plant will be more or less satisfac- 

 tory in proportion as it is or is not supplied with all the 

 water it can consume. The action of water is not, how- 

 ever, always beneficial. Injudiciously applied, it destroys 

 more plants than almost any other item of mismanage- 

 ment. In excess, it is always injurious. It fills the spaces 

 in the soil which would otherwise be filled with air, and 

 plants are choked and perish for want of this indispen- 

 sable element. A superabundance of water, for a time, 

 increases the growth of foliage and renders it tender and 

 succulent; hence a good supply thereof is needful to 

 plants, the leaves of which are eaten, as lettuce and 

 spinach. 



But by this excess the production of flowers and fruits 

 is delayed. The odor of the former and the flavor of the 

 latter are weakened and impaired. The size of the fruit 

 is increased by abundance of water, and without it the 

 strawberry, for instance, will not swell; but the increased 

 size, unless it ripens in a bright atmosphere,, or the quan- 

 tity of water is diminished as the fruit ripens, is partly 

 at the expense of flavor. Fruit is not only impaired in 

 quality, but is very liable to crack or burst from excess 

 of moisture, as the plum, grape, or stanwix nectarine 

 often do, or rot upon the tree while still immature, as the 

 peach, plum, etc. 



An excess of water softens the tissues of plants, and 

 renders them much more liable to injury by frost. A frost 

 directly after warm and abundant rains, when plants are 

 full of sap, is much more fatal than the same temperature 

 in dry weather. 



The temperature of the soil, if wet, is greatly lowered, 



