The Elements of Agriculture A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools, George E. Waring [read aloud books TXT] 📗

SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 199

 

It looks as though the pitcher were sweating, but the water all comes from the atmosphere, not, of course, through the sides of the pitcher.

If we breathe on a knife-blade, it condenses in the same manner the moisture of the breath, and becomes covered with a film of water.

Stone houses are damp in summer, because the inner surfaces of the walls, being cooler than the atmosphere, cause its moisture to be deposited in the manner described. By leaving a space, however, between the walls and the plaster, this moisture is prevented from being troublesome.

[How does this principle affect the soil?

Explain the experiment with the two boxes of soil.]

Nearly every night in the summer season, the cold earth receives moisture from the atmosphere in the form of dew.

A cabbage, which at night is very cold, condenses water to the amount of a gill or more.

The same operation takes place in the soil. When the air is allowed to circulate among its lower and cooler particles, they receive moisture from the same process of condensation. Therefore, when, by the aid of under-drains, the lower soil becomes sufficiently open to admit of a circulation of air, the deposit of atmospheric moisture will keep the soil supplied with water at a point easily accessible to the roots of plants.

SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 200

 

If we wish to satisfy ourselves that this is practically correct, we have only to prepare two boxes of finely pulverized soil, one, five or six inches deep, and the other fifteen or twenty inches deep, and place them in the sun at mid-day in summer. The thinner soil will be completely dried, while the deeper one, though it may have been perfectly dry at first, will soon accumulate a large amount of water on those particles which, being lower and more sheltered from the sun's heat than the particles of the thin soil, are made cooler.

With an open condition of subsoil, then, such as may be secured by under-draining, we entirely overcome drought.

[How does under-draining supply to the soil an increased amount of atmospheric fertilizers?

How does it warm the lower parts of the soil?]

Under-draining furnishes an increased supply of atmospheric fertilizers, because it secures a change of air in the soil. This change is produced whenever the soil becomes filled with water, and then dried; when the air above the earth is in rapid motion, and when the comparative temperature of the upper and lower soils changes. It causes new quantities of the ammonia and carbonic acid which it contains to be presented to the absorbent parts of the soil. Under-draining warms the lower parts of the soil, because the deposit of moisture (1) is necessarily accompanied by an abstraction of heat from the atmospheric vapor, and because heat is withdrawn from the whole amount of air circulating through the cooler soil. SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 201

 

When rain falls on the parched surface soil, it robs it of a portion of its heat, which is carried down to equalize the temperature for the whole depth. The heat of the rain-water itself is given up to the soil, leaving the water from one to ten degrees cooler, when it passes out of the drains, than when received by the earth.

There is always a current of air passing from the lower to the upper end of a well constructed drain; and this air is always cooler in warm weather, when it issues from, than when it enters the drain. Its lost heat is imparted to the soil.

[How does it hasten the decomposition of roots and other organic matter in the soil?

How does it accelerate the disintegration of its mineral parts?

Why is this disintegration necessary to fertility?]

This heating of the lower soil renders it more favorable to vegetation, partially by expanding the spongioles at the end of the roots, thus enabling them to absorb larger quantities of nutritious matters.

Under-draining hastens the decomposition of roots and other organic matters in the soil, by admitting increased quantities of air, thus supplying oxygen, which is as essential in decay as it is in combustion. It also allows the resultant gases of decomposition to pass away, leaving the air around the decaying substances in a condition to continue the process. SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 202

 

This organic decay, besides its other benefits, produces an amount of heat perfectly perceptible to the smaller roots of plants, though not so to us.

Draining accelerates the disintegration of the mineral matters in the soil, by admitting water and oxygen to keep up the process. This disintegration is necessary to fertility, because the roots of plants can feed only on matters dissolved from surfaces; and the more finely we pulverize the soil, the more surface we expose. For instance, the interior of a stone can furnish no food for plants; while, if it were finely crushed, it might make a fertile soil.

Any thing, tending to open the soil to exposure, facilitates the disintegration of its particles, and thereby increases its fertility.

[How does under-draining equalize the distribution of the fertilizing parts of the soil?

Why does this distribution lessen the impoverishment of the soil?

How does under-draining improve the mechanical texture of the soil?

How do drains affect the excrementitious matter of plants?]

6. Draining causes a more even distribution of nutritious matters among those parts of soil traversed by roots, because it increases the ease with which water travels around, descending by its own weight, moving sideways by a desire to find its level, or carried upward by attraction to supply the evaporation at the surface.

SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 203

 

By this continued motion of the water, soluble matter of one part of the soil may be carried to some other part; and another constituent from this latter position may be carried back to the former. Thus the food of vegetables is continually circulating around among their roots, ready for absorption at any point where it is needed, while the more open character of the soil enables roots to occupy larger portions, making a more even drain on the whole, and preventing the undue impoverishment of any part.

Under-drains improve the mechanical texture of the soil; because, by the decomposition of its parts, as previously described (4 and 5), it is rendered of a character to be more easily worked; while smooth round particles, which have a tendency to pack, are roughened by the oxidation of their surfaces, and move less easily among each other. Drains cause the excrementitious matter of plants to be carried out of the reach of their roots. Nearly all plants return to the soil those parts of their food, which are not adapted to their necessities, and usually in a form that is poisonous to plants of the same kind. In an open soil, this matter may be carried by rains to a point where roots cannot reach it, and where it may undergo such changes as will fit it to be again taken up. SECTION 4 (MECHANICAL CULTIVATION) CHAPTER III (ADVANTAGES OF UNDER-DRAINING) Pg 204

 

[Why do they prevent grasses from running out?]

By under-draining, grasses are prevented from running out, partly by preventing the accumulation of the poisonous excrementitious matter, and partly because these grasses usually consist of tillering plants.

These plants continually reproduce themselves in sprouts from the upper parts of their roots. These sprouts become independent plants, and continue to tiller (thus keeping the land supplied with a full growth), until the roots of