14 
Eeport of the Director of the 
Planting. 
The compression of soil beneath the seed reestablishes capillary 
connections which have become broken through the process of 
plowing and fitting the land, and hence is of avail towards supplying 
a constant access of moisture to the young plant; the firming of 
the soil above the seed tends to conserve the soil against waste 
of moisture as shown in our remarks concerning intercultural 
tillage. It is to these circumstances that we must ascribe the good 
effects often noted as following a spring shower just before seed 
has been planted, and which consolidates the soil against the 
undisturbed soil below, while the surface is fined in the process 
of planting. An experimental illustration of this explanation 
may be found on page 142 of our first report, 1882, with peas and cow 
peas, while corroborative evidence is given in the report of the first 
assistant for the present year. 
Moisture. 
Moisture is the leading essential for agriculture, as there is more or 
less fertility present in nearly all soils, for at least a small crop, 
and usually in excess of the requirement of a maximum crop. As a 
rule in farming, were moisture under our complete control, we would 
not be compelled to gain from addition of expensive fertilizer what 
might be more cheaply mined through the control of water, and we 
could extract from the soil fertility in the form of plant growth com- 
mensurate with the amount of nature's disintegrations and solvings, 
for indefinite periods without loss, and could, through the use of the 
manure of the farm and proper rotation, attain even to large crops 
without lessening the future productivity of our soil, each area of soil 
possessing its proper value as expressed in crop. This thought, how- 
ever, depends for its carrying into practice upon an if. We have not as 
yet complete control over soil moisture. We have, however, a sufficient 
control, even at present, to justify careful and elaborate study in this 
direction, as a hopeful source for means of agricultural advance. Soil 
physics at the present time requires study and investigation far more 
than soil chemistry. The demand on the station should be rather for 
more work in this direction, than for repeating work already well done 
upon fertilizer, or for original investigation upon fertilizer, for soil 
physics should be brought into line with soil chemistiy so that the 
two studies could be carried upward in unison, each supplementing 
the deficiencies in applying to practical ends the other. 
