Word: subsoil
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...River and the weakly trickling Rio Grande, has gotten less than 10% of normal rainfall for four years; southwestern Oklahoma has gotten little more, and areas of Colorado, Kansas, Arizona and New Mexico have suffered dangerous drought. In all of them last week, not only the topsoil but the subsoil was parched deep down...
...planting windbreaks and cover crops, by contour plowing to keep precious moisture in the soil, by use of the double-mouldboard lister plow, which ridges the ground and slows down wind action, by "chiseling" the earth with a spike-toothed Hoeme's* plow, which brings clods of subsoil to the surface...
When the settlers cleared New England forests 300 years ago. the A-horizon (topsoil) that they found was only two to three inches thick (Iowa topsoil formed under permanent grass is often 18 inches thick). Below this was sterile subsoil, and when the plow mixed the two together, the blend was low in nearly everything that a good soil should have. It was not the lavish virgin soil of popular fancy...
...drought, but farmers and townsfolk alike drew a deep, fresh breath and hoped. The rain was too late to help this year's crops, but in many areas it settled the blowing topsoil, helped the winter wheat and the pastures, and started the long process of replenishing the subsoil moisture...
...range of American cities. And U.S. planes, heading north, would welcome arctic bases. But the little that the armed services have already learned from their arctic operations has made one thing clear: conventional construction won't work. Buildings settle unevenly as they melt their way into permafrost (subsoil, some of which has been frozen solid since the ice age). Roads buckle and heave. Runways are soon pockmarked with dangerous chuckholes...