THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
every five, and generally two out of every five, crops 
are reduced by drought so largely as to bring down 
the farmers’ profits to a meager minimum, if not to 
wipe them out altogether. 
It must, however, be noted that the land-owner 
can supply his crops with a very large amount of 
moisture without resort to an irrigation system. 
The full effect of ditching and of cultivating — 
that is, stirring the soil, has never yet been fully ap- 
preciated by gardeners and farmers. Running the 
cultivator all summer keeps the soil loose and re- 
tentive of moisture. In very many cases this is all 
that you will require in the humid states. We 
must, however, place great emphasis on the fre- 
quency with which the work is done. In berry 
gardens, and in vegetable gardens, the usual cus- 
tom of cultivating once or twice does not begin to 
cover the requirements of even an ordinary year. 
The work should be begun early in the spring, and 
the cultivator kept running until the crops are about 
ready for harvesting. Bear in mind that about 
fifty per cent of ordinary soil is not soil at all, but 
space filled with water and air. What we want is 
to keep the soil in such a condition that it can be 
very full of these water cells— constantly refilled 
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