Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/62

50, the flowers fall off and the tree gives its strength to wood. The hygroscopicity of a soil, or the property of retaining moisture, is of great value in a hot and dry country. It is well known that the more a soil is manured and cultivated, the more moisture it retains. The following table will show the percentage of water contained in different soils.

The capacity to absorb humidity from the atmosphere varies with different soils. The following are the results of experiments.