45 SOIL 
FERTILITY 
you must have to raise a crop of corn, oats, 
potatoes, hay, etc., you will see the value of land 
that has the power to hold water. There was a 
farmer in Pennsylvania who got his farm in 
such a water preserving condition that he said 
the spring rains were a nuisance. Watch the 
soil and you will see, that soil that is filled with 
decayed vegetable matter and humus is warmer 
in the winter-time, cooler in the summer-time, 
wetter in dry weather and dryer in wet weather. 
A mulch which preserves the moisture in 
hot or cold weather also unlocks this fertility 
of the soil. 
All of this is of immense importance, not only 
to the farmer on a large scale, but also to you, 
with the limited area of your garden yard; 
for in it lies the secret of heavier and earlier 
crops than your less instructed neighbors. 
Professor Whitney, Chief of the Bureau of 
Soils, Department of Agriculture, Wash., says 
that deep plowing and shallow cultivation are 
the best means of retaining moisture in the soil, 
and he adds, “Strange as it may seem, while we 
suffer if we do not get rains, we should actually 
be better off, as they are in the arid regions of 
the west, if we did not have any rain during the 
growing season and had a means of providing 
water when we wanted it. The trouble with. 
