If
at the beginning of the wet season the upper eight feet of soil are
fairly well stored with moisture, the precipitation will move down
to even greater depths, beyond the reach of the soil auger. If, on
the other hand, the soil is comparatively dry at the beginning of
the season, the natural precipitation will distribute itself through
the upper few feet, and thus be readily measured by the soil auger.
In the Utah investigations it was found that of the water which fell
as rain and snow during the winter, as high as 95-1/2 per cent was
found stored in the first eight feet of soil at the beginning of the
growing season. Naturally, much smaller percentages were also found,
but on an average, in soils somewhat dry at the beginning of the dry
season, more than three fourths of the natural precipitation was
found stored in the soil in the spring. The results were all
obtained in a locality where the bulk of the precipitation comes in
the winter, yet similar results would undoubtedly be obtained where
the precipitation occurs mainly in the summer. The storage of water
in the soil cannot be a whit less important on the Great Plains than
in the Great Basin.
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