stances as can be produced
on the land itself. We would not declare against foreign manures, but
insist that the necessary ingredients are found, or may be manufactured
near at hand. The philosophy of deep plowing and thorough pulverization
is obvious. A fine soil will retain and appropriate moisture in an
eminent degree, on the principle of capillary attraction, or as a sponge
or a piece of loaf sugar will take up water. There is also room for
excess of water to sink away from the surface, and return again when
needed. It also affords room for the roots of plants. Such a soil also
receives moisture from the atmosphere. The atmosphere also contains much
water, and more in the heat of summer than at any other time. The air
also, with a constant pressure of fifteen pounds to the square inch,
enters to a considerable depth into the soil, and the deeper it is
stirred, and the more thoroughly it is pulverized, the more it will
enter. In coming in contact with the cool moisture below, it is
condensed and waters the soil, on the principle that a pitcher of cold
water in a warm room has large drops of water on the outside; that water
is a mere condensation of moisture in the atmosphere. The cool subsoil
acts in the same way upon the atmosphere at night. A deeply
disintegrated soil, also, seldom washes by rain. Shallow-plowed and
coarse land sends off the water after a slight rain, while deep-plowed
and thoroughly pulverized land retains it. The philosophy of manures
involves the same principles. All the fertilizers act upon soils in such
a manner as to render them fine, and open an immense surface to the
action of the atmosphere, and form large reservoirs for moisture through
their innumerable fine pores. Draining is to carry off an excess of
water that would stand on an unfavorable subsoil. That water, on
undrained land, causes two evils; it stagnates and renders plants
unhealthy, and it is too cool, rendering land what we call cold. Thus,
the deeper you plow land, and the finer you make it, the warmer it will
be, and the more perfectly it will control moisture. Mixing soils by
subsoiling, trenching, and deep plowing, and by carting on foreign
substances, is wholly on this principle. Sand that drifts about with the
wind is too light to retain moisture, and needs clay carted on. By this
means the poorest white sand has often been converted into the most
productive soil. Definite rules for this mixture of soils can not be
safely