“Bob Seeds” further says that a field filled with the decayed vegetable matter and humus from one crop of crimson clover plowed down, will hold fifty tons more water to the acre than soil that is not. If you figure how much water you must have to raise a crop of corn, oats, potatoes, hay, etc., you will see the value of land that has the power to hold water. There was a farmer in Pennsylvania who got his farm in such a water preserving condition that he said the spring rains were a nuisance. Watch the soil and you will see, that soil that is filled with decayed vegetable matter and humus is warmer in the winter-time, cooler in the summer-time, wetter in dry weather and dryer in wet weather. A mulch which preserves the moisture in hot or cold weather also unlocks this fertility of the soil. All of this is of immense importance, not only to the farmer on a large scale, but also to you, with the limited area of your garden yard; for in it lies the secret of heavier and earlier crops than your less instructed neighbors. Professor Whitney, Chief of the Bureau of Soils, Department of Agriculture, Wash., says that deep plowing and shallow cultivation are the best means of retaining moisture in the soil, and he adds, “Strange as it may seem, while we suffer if we do not get rains, we should actually be better off, as they are in the arid regions of the west, if we did not have any rain during the growing season and had a means of providing water when we wanted it. The trouble with us is that we cannot maintain the dry mulch, because we have rain on the average every three days. If you knew what was coming, you could save your crop through any ordinary period of drought, provided you had the skill, the judgment and the chance which would lead you to begin your operations at just the right time.” According to Professor Whitney there are about 400 distinct types of soil so far encountered in the United States, with varying degrees of known fertility, and only eight or ten staple crops growing. This, of course, does not include the special crops like celery; it is the regular, staple field or garden crops that are unnecessarily limited. These are grown on all kinds of soil in all parts of the country without regard to the suitability of the soil to the crop.