The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1910-09-15
WATER RISES FeoM sUBsolL
Does Not Happen on Dry Ranch for
Reason That Soil 10 Seldom
Wet Enough.

OF late years we have been told In
direct contradiction TO well known
scientific data, that water rises from
the subsoil all the time and comes to
the surface. especially II you pack your
land.
When there happens TO be plenty OF
capillary water from an underfiow or
from seepage this may happen. but II
does not happen on the dry ranch for
the simple reason that the soil Is sell
dom wet enough The proof Of this
lies in the fact Shat this dry crust will
form in spite OF the moisture under 1t.
Thinking. perhaps. that the old au-
thorities on physics. capillarity, hy-
draulics. etc. might possibly be In
error. made number of tests and
found that capillarity was the same
old capillarity and had not broken
loose on any OF these new stunts late
ly attributed to II by some of its new
admirers. writes EN- r. Parsons In
Ranch and Range
In my orchard in a dry year. the
ground still dries cut from the surface
down. and II the drought continues
long enough a crust, forms underneath
the mulch. but underneath this crust
we have fifteen to twenty feet OF earth
carrying from eight to about fifteen
per cent of moisture, so we do not
worry a particle about this crust which
Of course, Is porous and would allow
moisture to escape in the form OF va
por were II not for the mulch above
II.
Directly under the crust we made re-
peated tests IN the dry spell Cf 1908.
and the ground was IS per cent wet,
but there was no capillary action
whatever between this wet ground and
the dry crust above It. This and pre-
vious tests 90 to prove as hitherto be-
lieved that there Is very little II any
capillary action between vet and dry
ground unless the wet ground in ques-
ton is somewhere about 20 per cent.
wet
Some moisture vapor. however. n>ay
arise and candense In the soil above,
rendering II a trife ieavier after a
cold night, but this Is distillation. not
capillarity.
To test this. take Mason Jar and
fill II half full Of wet dirt from any
where In good subsril few inches un-
der the surface. then pack In enough
dry dirt to fill the tar and watch II the
moisture line rises
The only wav to cause the moisture
! to diffuse itself through the drv dirt
is to cork the jar tight and put II near
stove where the heat can convert
the moisture into vapor.
II is this action Of the suns heat
raising the moisture to some slight ex-
tent by distillation that has led to so
many erroneous ideas about capillar-
fly.
II man plows six inches only, and
a dry year catches him. his mulch, say
about thIae inches. dries out first,
then crust begins to form under
meath. and If this becomes dry down
to another two inches, which makes
FIVE inches altogether. he has only one
inch left. very slim chance for his
crop 10 survive. But II, on the other
hand. he relies on 10-inch plowing he
still has four inches left to make his
crop and more moisture in his subsoil.
for deep plowing saves and accumu.
lates more moisture than shallow plow-
ing.
in 1898 we experienced ten weeks
drought, crusts formed in the orchard
and In all our fields, but underneath
the crusts we had about two feet of
moisture and in the orchard about ff-
teen, so we lost no sleep worrying
about the crust and harvested crops
| as usual.
The moisture in the orchard was OBJ.
tanned by cultivation. the sod land ad.
Joining the orchard being perfectly
dry, That In the fields is obtained by
deep plowing and following once in a
while when the subsoil is found to be
becoming too dry.