36 



Campbell's 1902 Soil Culture Manual. 



points, one of which is a some-what recent discovery but apparently quite 

 correct, and this is, that moisture stored in the ground is more valuable 

 for plant growth than the same quantity of water having just fallen from a 

 rain. Professor Shepherd of North Dakota, makes the assertion that one 

 inch of stored water is equivalent to two inches of rainfall. We are in- 

 clined to believe that he is correct. By holding the moisture near the sur- 

 face during the more heated portions of the season we succeed in securing 

 a more complete decomposition of the vegetable matter in our soil, pass- 

 ing it on to the stage that is known as humus, which is a most valuable 

 element in our soil. The more humus we have the greater amount of 

 moisture we can hold in the ground. This, coupled with the amount of 

 moisture that we are able to store, and the improvement of the physical 

 condition of the soil by the discing, plowing, and frequent cultivation in 

 our Summer Culture brings about three conditions. The better and more 

 careful our work is done the more ideal are these conditions. By the very 

 tine, compact condition our soil will hold more water, consequently our 

 plant is less liable to sufifer from a lack of water during extreme heat. 

 This compacted condition is also, from the fact of the more minute pores 

 in the soil, favorable to a more rapid movement of moisture by capillary 

 attraction, and last, but not least, conducive to a more prolific growth, and 

 a more general and uniform distribution of the roots. All three of these 

 conditions are exceedingly important in seasons like that of 1901, when 

 weeks go by with continuous extreme heat and no rain, and such seasons- 

 or conditions always come without warning. 



It is not out of place to here quote again from Professor King's book 

 on the soil. Under the heading of physical effects of fallowing, he says: 

 "That form of tillage known as fallowing, exerts marked physical and 

 chemical effects upon the soil not felt at least with like intensity on lands 

 heavily cropped. One of the most marked effects produced by fallowing 

 is that exerted upon the water contents of the soil. Not only is the fal- 

 lowed ground more moist during the cultivation period, as indeed should 

 be expected, but the influence is felt the following spring, and even at the 

 end of harvest after the crop has been removed from the ground." 



After some careful observations, he found that in the spring succeed- 

 ing a summer fallow after all of the fall, winter, and spring rains, that the 

 land which had been fallowed contained in its upper four feet 203 tons per 

 acre more water than did that which had been cropped the season before. 

 Nor was this all, for at the end of the growing season and after large crops 

 of oats and barley had been harvested from the land, there was still a 

 difference in the water contents of the upper four feet, amounting to 179 

 tons per acre. That the differences here recorded were not due to inherent 

 differences in the soil is proven by the water contents of the same lands 

 taken at three different times before the fallowing experiments began. 

 Here are quoted some remarkable facts with reference to results m 



