1871. ] 
WATER SUPPLY FOR DRY SEASONS. 
123 
These two states of the sponge are not inappropriate illustrations of the 
different conditions of shallow and deep soils in regard to water, and their vary¬ 
ing ability to counteract drought. Shallow soils are like the hard dry sponge, and 
are soon baked into sterility. Deep friable soils are like the full sponge—nourish¬ 
ing the thirsty roots of plants without intermission through the longest droughts. 
The winter is the season for filling this great sponge, the earth, with water. 
Then we should set about digging, trenching, down, down, to at least thirty 
inches or three feet. Then when the heavy rains or snow-flakes fall, and 
February fill-ditch comes, all this depth will be charged with water. The rain, 
instead of beating down the surface, and scouring away the richest and most 
soluble portions of the soil into the nearest ditch or stream, will sink into the 
earth with a fattening, fertilizing thud. The entire tilth is thus converted into 
a storage tank, and a sieve also ; for on deep tilths no water escapes by the sur¬ 
face ; every drop that falls has to enter in, and abide. It is only after the land 
can hold no more, that any water escapes ; and then, if the matter is properly 
arranged, the waste-pipe from the great tank, the earth, is placed at the bottom, 
and not at the top. The result is that the whole of the water passes through 
the earth before any of it is discharged; and it parts with a good deal to the 
earth on its passage. It gives up heat, ammonia, carbonic acid gas, and probably 
many other things, all which are left as a toll tax within the land. But more 
than this, the passage of water through the earth rends and splits it into in¬ 
numerable fragments. The result of the passage of so many water-courses, each 
cutting a way for itself, is that the whole mass of the earth as far as the water is 
conveyed is pulverized, comminuted, and broken down into the moist state of 
friability. % On the heels of the water follows the air, and deep tilths, so stored 
with water, are likewise stocked with air—the one complementary, as it were, to 
the other. 
Water, in the state in which I have here advocated its being stored within 
the earth, is partly dependent upon the air ;• whereas the air, again, could never 
have so thoroughly pervaded the earth, but for the passage made for it by 
moving water. Again, all tanks should be furnished with a waste-pipe ; other¬ 
wise, they may be filled to bursting, or till they run over, to their own injury 
and that of other property. The tank of our tilth is no exception to this law ; 
without an outlet, the storage of so much water would ruin all. The earth 
would be soured and soddened during rain, and baked into iron or rent into 
fragmentary fissures during drought; but by removing the excess of water 
through underground drains all these evils are rendered impossible. It is not so 
much that drainage removes, as that it equalizes the supply, and regulates the 
distribution of water. Deeply-cultivated, well-pulverized, properly drained land 
holds sufficient water by capillary attraction, or suspension, to supply all the wants 
of plants. When the sun beats upon, penetrates, and bakes shallow, undrained 
tilths dry, it scarcely dries the surface of such land as I have been describing. 
