Fighting the Drought in the Small Garden 
HOW TO CONDUCT A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE DRY SPELL— 
THE BEST MEANS OF COMBINING CULTIVATION AND IRRIGATION 
N OTWITHST ANDIN G 
all the damage done to 
our gardens, small and large,by 
insects and by plant diseases, 
there is another enemy whose 
devastations far surpass the 
ravages of all of these added 
together. Not that the actual 
destruction is more, for it is 
not — and for that reason the 
tremendous extent of the losses 
due to partial drought are sel¬ 
dom realized. To illustrate: 
if one sets out a hundred little 
cabbage plants, and the cut¬ 
worms get ten of them, and a 
clever, fat wood-chuck ten 
more, and the cabbage mag¬ 
gots still another ten, and the 
green caterpillars ruin an ad¬ 
ditional ten, one certainly 
would be justified in raising a 
cry about garden pests, for 
the total loss would be forty 
per cent. But the fact remains that the 
sixty plants spared, in a season of plentiful 
rain, would give a bigger crop than a full 
hundred plants in a dry season in which 
each plant attained only half its normal 
weight. (In this connection it must be remembered that a head 
of cabbage, or a melon or a F squash, six inches in diameter, will 
weigh eight times as much as one three inches in diameter.) 
There is not one season in fifty that plants in the open garden 
get all the water they could use to advantage; and every day 
they go thirsty, even though it is not enough to “check" them, 
means a loss in crops at the end of the season. As this loss is 
not a visible one, it passes unnoticed, and we go. on trusting to 
luck and the weather to send us the right conditions for growing 
big crops, and in the meantime have to use twice as much garden 
space, seed and time as would be necessary if we could give our 
plants all the water they could use. 
Another reason why the importance of the water question is 
not realized is that few people understand that plants not only 
need drink, but that all their food must be taken up while held in 
solution in water. Thus it makes no difference how rich we may 
have made the soil, nor what tempting forms of plant-food we 
may have put into it, so long as there is not enough moisture in 
the ground to carry them up through the peculiar feeding sys¬ 
tem of the plant. 
Important indeed is the part that water plays in the growing 
of plants, and where it is withheld to too great an extent the re¬ 
sult is plainly apparent. But it is by the half-water-starved con¬ 
dition of the garden soil, in which the plants look well enough 
but do not seem to come on as they ought, that the extensive and 
tremendous damage is done. 
What then can we do to fight the great invasion—drought? 
Such measures as we may take are, of course, of two kinds — - 
preventative and remedial; and they are, respectively : cultivation, 
special cultivation with drought fighting in mind, and irrigation. 
Now the matter of proper cultivation has much more to do 
with keeping moisture in the 
soil than most people imagine. 
There is not space here to go 
into the science of the matter 
in any great detail, but a hasty 
common-sense view will tell 
us that the water that falls 
passes from the soil in three 
ways ; (i) part of it soaks or 
seeps through the open sur¬ 
face soil either down through 
a porous (sandy or gravelly) 
subsoil, or to a hard subsoil 
along which it runs to lower 
levels; (2) part of it runs off 
the surface, especially on slop¬ 
ing areas; and (3) part—and 
a large part—is drawn up 
from the soil into the air 
again by capillary attraction 
and evaporation. It therefore 
becomes evident that in our 
cultivation we must aim (1) 
to make the soil as deep and 
as sponge-like, or moisture-holding, as pos¬ 
sible in order that its storage capacity may 
be as great as possible; (2) that we must 
try to keep a mellow surface, into which 
rain will soak quickly where it falls; and 
(3) that we must keep the water which does soak into the ground 
from rising again to the surface where sun and winds evaporate 
it with tremendous rapidity. 
The first of these conditions is attained by frequent, thorough 
and deep plowing. The majority of garden soils cannot be 
plowed too deeply. (The few exceptions are light, sandy soils, 
lying on open sandy or gravelly subsoils, through which water 
runs quickly; such soils it is well to plow always at a uniform 
depth, and keep the subsoil as compact as possible). 
It will, however, not do to try to plow ten or twelve inches 
deep on soil that has formerly been turned over to a depth of six 
or eight inches. If it is attempted, the top layer of the garden 
will be largely the cold, undisintegrated subsoil turned up from 
below and not favorable to luxuriant plant growth. A better way, 
if the time can be afforded, is to plow an inch or two deeper 
every time the piece is turned over. This leaves only a small 
amount of poorer soil mixed with the rich surface soil, which 
will be, if anything, a benefit, and it contains usually generous 
amounts of plant-foods (nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash) in 
forms which will become gradually available. By this method, 
and plowing both spring and fall, two seasons will suffice to 
bring most any field to the desired depth. 
If it is required to increase the depth of the soil at one plowing, 
the best way will be to plow as deep as possible — a strong team 
being necessary — and then add the manure and “cross plow” 
lightly, so that the newly upturned subsoil is thoroughly mixed 
through the upper four or five inches of soil. If this deep plow¬ 
ing leaves a remaining subsoil of a clayey nature, follow the regu¬ 
lar plow with a “subsoil plow,” which turns a small furrow in 
the bottom of the regular furrow, but does not lift any soil to the 
surface, simply breaks it up where it lies so that the water mav 
Even in the small garden it is becoming more evidently necessary 
each year to provide against drought, if the best results are 
expected 
by F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by E. J. Hall and H. B. Fullerton 
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