| Show stirring the soil in drouth at the present time when the sultry sun in in connection with the total absence of rain and the limited supplies of water for irrigation the following from the american recommending a more frequent use of the hoe as a remedial agent 0 will be found timely and we opine not a little efficient an old topic surely but one of the greatest practical importance an old topic but on one about anich men are not agreed in opinion there is 13 theory and practice on both sides some farmers hold that stirring the eaith eaily in in dry weather injures the roots of plants and ex exposes poses the soil to the sun and the dry air so much ag as to do more harm than good but dut the other s side de of the tile queston ques ion ioa has also its good arguments we will hint at one or tw two 0 frequent stirring of the soil in kroutil drouth renders it more porous and so fits it to absorb moisture f from fron rona the atmosphere and to draw it from the wet subsoil by being bellm 0 frequently broken up it becomes like a sponge spon e any anyone one can easily satisfy himself of this go into your garden and loosen up the soil over a space ofa ofa few feet square and then see if for several mornings after that patch is not moist while the surrounding surface is dry A neighbor of ours had a potato patch last summer which being in in a warm and sandy soil became bady badly parched in july the stalks drooped aid a tota toto loss of the C crop COP OP was threatened here was a fair subject for a desperate experiment accordingly on one of the hottest and drnest days of the tile manth me nth he gave them a through rl plowing owing passing the plow t ow four times through throng i each f furrow arrow first plowing P pi ov i two w 0 furrows fur ros from the hills and then re returning stir nig g the ground back by two other furrows no rain fell for ten days after atter in three days the vines vinea stood erect and began to row again the soil was moistened by uy the 5 aws of of every night the crop was saved and it proved quite abundant an one again the stirring of the soil in d drouth routh renders the earth a poorer conductor of heat than it would be if it rema fema remained ined unbroken and hard every one knows that a stol stone 1 e or any metallic substance lying in the suii sun becom decomps s hotter than a bunch of cotton because it is a better conductor of heat so when the surface of the earth becomes baked and hard it absorbs heat heal more than when hen it is broken and pulverized in a well tilled garden the ground two or three inches below the surface is quite cool at midday it is partly on the same principle that a few inches of much mulch ap ing material will keep the ground cool and moist all the summer bolg hence nence it is iz elby eay eby to see that stirred stirring tha the soil soli in drouth will seep keep the roots of hll hil plants rits cool and aha ilio illo moist moisi and abid so promote their growth I 1 but let the theory be as it may the fackre fact remains that thorough tilla tillage e ia is the best possible security against drouth 11 |
