STORING RAINFALL IN THE SOIL 121 
In the Utah investigations it was found that of the 
water which fell as rain and snow during the winter, 
as high as 954 per cent was found stored in the first 
eight feet of soil at the beginning of the growing 
season. Naturally, much smaller percentages were 
also found, but on an average, in soils somewhat 
dry at the beginning of the dry season, more than 
three fourths of the natural precipitation was found 
stored in the soil in the spring. The following table 
shows some of these summary results : — 
PROPORTION OF RAINFALL STORED IN THE SOIL 
Percent of 
Percent precipita- 
of water | Rainfall | tion 
Period in soil in | during found in | , Soil 
fall period the spring} 
(Depth | (Inches) | (Toa 
of 8 ft.) epth of 
8 ft.) 
Sept. 12, 1902—April 16, 1903 . . 8.78 8.51 87.59 | Sandy Loam 
Aug. 23, 1904—April 22,1905 . 7.87 7.94 95.56 | Sandy Loam 
Sept. 8, 1905-April 28,1906 . . 8.83 12.14 82.61 | Sandy Loam 
Oct. 8, 1906—April 29,1907 .. 9.10 16.17 62.77 | Sandy Loam 
Sept. 14, 1907-April 23, 1908 . . 11.03 6.38 67.55 | Sandy Loam 
July 27, 1904—April 15,1905 . . 12.34 10.51 93.17 | Clay 
Aug. 8, 1904—April 5, 1905 — 7.73 7.27 64.80 | Sand 
July 28, 1905-May 7, 1906 al 11.04 10.65 81.13 | Loam 
While the results exhibited in the above table were 
all obtained in a locality where the bulk of the 
precipitation comes in the winter, yet similar results 
would undoubtedly be obtained where the precipi- 
tation occurs mainly in the summer. The storage 
of water in the soil cannot be a whit less important 
on the Great Plains than in the Great Basin. In 
