preservation it will be worth your while to watch the mulch, to see if it is still an effective blanket or if the connection with the capillary tubes below is beginning to take place. If the latter be so, it is high time that you repeat the cultivating work.

Water-saving means early work.-Water-saving falls into two means-the catching and holding of it. You

The soil is cracked to some depth below. Soil moisture is fast leaving the ground, and the soil is in bad physical condition

first must get water into the soil, and then you can use it; provided, of course, you do not let it escape before it is needed. Too many tillers of the soil fail to understand that the most important principle at stake in water-saving is to till and cultivate in such a manner that there is free access of water into the soil. Then it can be preserved

But

by cultivation and mulches throughout the season. failures in supplying water, although effective culture— mulch making-is given during the growing season, are certain to happen if no water is in the soil to be conserved. you would have water for plants for the time when they shall need it, if you would have soil water for them for later use, make no mistake about first getting it in the soil, and the rest of the work will be easy.

If

Just bear in mind these suggestions:

1. Getting ready for crops-opening soils and catching water-is of more importance than after cultivation.

2. Get water deep into the soil and you will have bigger stores of supply.

3. Cultivate after every rain, not when the soil is real wet, but before it becomes very dry.

4. Make your mulch deep enough-three inches is none too deep in dry regions.

5. Open the soil early in the spring with a disk if you have not fall-plowed or winter-tilled.

6. Stir unused summer lands frequently so as to let water in and to keep it in for the next crop.

7. Lands frozen up for long periods-like in the New England territory-are as needful of water-saving as those of the semi-arid or dry farming districts.

CHAPTER XXII

STABLE MANURE: ITS COMPOSITION AND ITS PRESERVATION

The potential plant food contained in a ton of manure is dependent upon five factors: the amount of water in the manure; the sort of feed that has been given the animals; the kind and quantity of bedding that has been used; the care and preservation that has been given; and the class of live stock.

All manure contains water.-Manure contains a great deal of water. If used by weight, it is readily seen how much less valuable a lot of manure containing much water is, when compared with another lot containing a less percentage. Suppose one lot contains eighty per cent. of water and another lot sixty per cent.

In the first instance there is twenty per cent. of dry matter, while in the second instance there is as much as forty per cent. or twice as much dry matter, and, consequently, twice as much plant food. In the first instance, if eighty per cent. is water, you have but four hundred pounds of dry matter in every ton of manure.

In the second instance, sixty per cent. being water, you have eight hundred pounds of manure-just double the quantity. Four tons per acre of the latter kind applied to the soil is as valuable, from the standpoint of potential plant food, as eight tons of that kind containing eighty per cent. of water.

The nature of the feed.-Animals fed on corn stover, timothy hay, cotton-seed hulls, and corn produce manure of inferior quality compared with that pro

duced by animals when fed on alfalfa, clover, cotton-seed meal, wheat bran, and linseed meal. Manure secured from such feeding is very rich in fertilizing components, and is worth much more to the soil than the manure made when non-nitrogenous feeds are supplied.

How few users of stable manure, even in sections where large quantities are produced, appreciate this point! You ought to be interested just as much in the kinds of feed that have been used as you are in the price you pay for the manure, or in the cost necessary for getting manure onto the land. The table following shows the difference in fertilizing materials in a few common feeding stuffs:

NOTE.-Values have been recorded as follows: Nitrogen, 15 cents; phosphorus, 6 cents; potassium, 5 cents.

Bedding has a part.—That bedding has a part in influencing the value is generally recognized. Straw bedding is worth a great deal more to the land than shavings or sawdust. If a great deal of poor bedding is used in proportion to the food consumed, the resultant manure is not so good. If rich grain food is fed the stock and little bedding used, the manure, if properly preserved, will be extremely valuable. Just bear in mind this about bed