State Convention—Relation of Soil to Water. 323 
and gaseous compounds will find its way. If you will allow me to 
do so, I will call these intercalar spaces the outer department of 
the soil, and set apart for atmospheric air. Now, it is not those 
spaces between the particles, but to the particles themselves, that 
we must look for the power to absorb water, and the true relation 
of the soil to water. 
Now, if we take those particles of inorganic matter forming the 
soil, and place them under a microscope, we find that they are por¬ 
ous, filled with little cavities. Some of those cavities are the re¬ 
sult of their original structure; others produced by the solvant 
forces to which they have been exposed in the change from rock to 
soil. If, on the other hand, we place a particle of organic matter 
under the microscope, we notice that it is made up of minute cells 
with well-defined inner and outer walls. No matter how small 
the particle is, its structure is cellular. The soil, then, is made up 
of those porous, cellular particles of inorganic and organic matter, 
and by your permission I will call these pores and cells the inner 
department of the soil, and adapted especially to water. 
Here, then, in the inner department, in those cavities and cells, 
we find the power to absorb, and the place to retain the water 
necessary for the processes of vegetation. But for these cells and 
cavities in the particles of the soil, water would pass rapidly 
through it; or, if prevented from passing through by an impervious 
subsoil, it would remain, filling the spaces between the particles, 
obstructing the passage of air, and consequently drowning the 
roots. Or, without such cavities and cells to protect it, it would 
be exposed almost to the direct rays of the sun, and would conse¬ 
quently pass off rapidly as vapor. This inner department of the 
soil protects the water from too rapid drainage or too rapid vapor- 
ation. 
While dwelling upon this inner department of the soil, I will 
notice another feature of its relation to water. In a well cultivated 
soil, that is where it is thoroughly pulverized so that each particle 
is freed from every other particle, and consequently surrounded by 
an atmosphere charged, as we know atmospheric air is, with more 
or less vapor. These pores and cells will, in dry seasons, condense 
on their walls, and consequent^ absorb what vapor this circulat¬ 
ing air contains. It may be rather difficult for us, at first, to get a 
clear conception of the fact that these little particles of matter 
