Soil Water

Probably no other phase of modern farming, except the ever pressing problem of how to keep up the fertility of the soil, is now receiving more attention than the problem of how to maintain an adequate supply of soil water. The farmers of our vast arid regions, both in the irrigation and in the dry-farming sections, pay scarcely more attention to it than the farmers in the states east of the Mississippi, where the rainfall is supposed to be sufficient for ordinary crops. It is frequently stated that the lack of sufficient water at the right time does more to reduce the yields of farm crops in the United States than the lack of available plant food. This does not refer particularly to the great droughts, which may reduce the corn crop of the whole Mississippi valley 50 per cent. ; nor even to the local droughts, which sere the meadows and shrivel the gardens in scattered localities. The greatest losses from lack of water are not from noticeable droughts, but from the unnoticed dryness which merely lessens the crops year after year, reducing the average and lowering the standard. There are a few restricted sections of the country where the problem of soil water is not pressing; but in most parts of the United States a paramount problem in crop production is how to supply moisture at the right time and in adequate quantity. If a man handles his soil in such a way that it is in the best condition to receive and hold a limited rainfall, he has taken the most important step in solving the coordinate problem of how to maintain its fertility.