The demonstration in the last chapter that the water which falls as rain or snow may be stored in the soil for the use of plants is of first importance in dry-farming, for it makes the farmer independent, in a large measure, of the distribution of the rainfall. The dry-farmer who goes into the summer with a soil well stored with water cares little whether summer rains come or not, for he knows that his crops will mature in spite of external drouth. In fact, as will be shown later, in many dry-farm sections where the summer rains are.
