Research Built tin Xo. 3 
Figure 33 shows the plants as they ap- 
peared on May 27. The relation of the 
distribution of water to the root develop- 
ment is shown in figure 34 and Table 29. 
In neither cylinder had a crevice 
formed between the soil column and the 
cylinder wall. 
In the first cylinder roots were abund- 
ant thruout the soil mass, reaching to the 
very bottom of the cylinder, while in the 
other they were numerous in the first two 
feet of subsoil and very scarce in the three 
feet below. 
In No. 24 the free moisture amounted 
to about 1.5 per cent at all depths below 
the first foot while in No. 76 it rose steadily 
from 1.3 per cent in the upper part of the 
second foot to over 18.0 per cent at the 
bottom of the cylinder. The water in the 
first had been reduced to 1.0 per cent be- 
low the wilting coefficient but that in the 
other was still far above the wilting co- 
efficient. (Figure 22.) 
SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENT OF 1911. 
When the seeds were planted, the cylin- 
ders carried from one and a half to three 
times as much free water as the same soils 
would have retained under field conditions. 
Abnormally high temperatures near the 
close of the experiment hastened the death 
of the wheat and bean plants, which in 
general had poorly developed root systems. 
Normal milo and bean plants were pro- 
duced on most of the soils, but all the wheat plants failed to make 
a normal growth and died while an abundance of free water still 
remained in the subsoil. In one cylinder a maize plant de- 
veloped roots to the bottom of the cylinder and uniformly re- 
duced the water content to a point below the wilting coefficient. 
In nearly all the cylinders roots penetrated to the bottom but 
in the case of the wheat and the beans the development was in 
most cases much less than in the preceding two experiments. 
Where roots were developed in abundance the water content was 
reduced almost to the hygroscopic coefficient before the plants 
died. 
No. 76. No. 24. 
Fig. 33. Corn 
plants 96 days 
after planting. 
Both dead. 
