82 The Principles of Fruit-growing 



for it is the period of inactivity, when the work of the 

 farmer and the growth of the plants are least interfered 

 with. If farmers in the East and South were certain that 

 there would be no rain from Jime till September, they 

 would carefully husband the rainfall of the earlier months, 

 and would suffer little loss; but when they expect rain all 

 summer, they neglect the saving of the early precipitation, 

 and gamble on the chance of having a rain when they need 

 it. It often happens that the dry countries suffer least 

 for water. 



The water is to be saved by holding it in the earth. If 

 the earth is finely divided and yet compact, the numberless 

 pores or interstices will hold great quantities of water. 

 If, then, the interstices next the atmosphere are broken 

 up so that capillarity is reduced, the water is prevented 

 from passing off by evaporation. The whole process of 

 the saving of moisture, therefore, falls into two means: the 

 catching and holding of it (or the making of a reservoir), 

 and the preventing 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 hardpan may be so near the surface that little 

 water can get into the land; the soil is shallow, and the 

 early rains make mud-puddles or pass off over the sur- 

 face. In such lands deep plowing is necessary, to break 

 up the hardpan and to increase the storage-capacity. 

 Breaking up the hardpan by means of dynamite blasting 

 may make a useful preparation for fruit-lands. If the 



