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Show WATER CONTENTS OF PLANTS Clay Soils Hold More Moisture Than Good Loams, but They Give 40 Per Cent. Less. An acre of water equals 113 tons. Means use 2 ij 0 tons of water; peas use 447 tons; corn, 272 tons; clover, 45:! tons; oats. 5."7 tons; millet, 41b' tons; bucktt heat, G4 tons. Millet and buckwheat are often planted during summer drouths and succeed, but the above will show that it is their ability to go after water that causes them to grow not small water consumption, as In the case with corn, which uses but 272 tons of water. Clay soils hold a great deal more water than good loams, but they will give up less about 40 per cent., as against 92 per cent, with sandy loams. Sand and gravel will give up water, but it escapes by gravitation downward down-ward and it cannot rise by capilarity, as In a clay soil. It will be seen from the above how mych consideration must be given to other factors than rainfall, and why some in regions of heavy precipitation are always bucking drouth on account of soil and crops, whilst a man in a far more arid region, who has worked out these questions, is doing fairly well. Russian thistle and sweet clover are two more plants that use a great deal of water and yet succeed in dry regions, re-gions, and again we have mila maize and other sorghums that resist drouth by remaining dormant, whilst crops like corn may be blasted beyond recall, re-call, no matter how much rain falls. A crop of rye or weeds turned under will often furnish the humus to arrest and hold water to grow crops on a toe porous soil, but such result will not occur until the crop has rotted, at least in part', and filled in between the dirt particles. |