Saving the Water. 143 
usually comes at the best season, for it is the period 
of inactivity, when the work of the farmer and the 
growth of the plants are least interfered with. If 
we, in the east and south, were perfectly certain that 
we should have no rain from June until September, 
we should carefully husband the rainfall of the 
earlier months, and we should suffer little loss; but 
now that we expect rain all summer long, we neg- 
lect the saving of the early rains, and gamble upon 
the chance of having a-rain when we shall need 
it. It often happens that the dry countries suffer 
least for water! 
How shall we save the water? By holding it in 
the earth. If the earth is finely divided and yet 
compact, the capillary pores or interstices will hold 
enormous quantities of water. If, then, we break 
up these interstices next the atmosphere, we shall 
prevent the water from passing off by evaporation. 
The whole subject of the saving of moisture, there- 
fore, falls into two means, the catching and holding 
of it (or the making of a reservoir), and the pre- 
vention of evaporation. It is, therefore, a question 
of plowing and then of surface tilling. It will thus 
be seen how futile it may be to try to save the 
water by beginning tillage late in the season, when 
a drought is threatened. If the land has not been 
well prepared, there may be no water to save by 
that time. It may either have run through the 
land into the drains, or it may have evaporated 
long before the farmer saw the need of saving it. 
The hard-pan may be so near the surface that but 
