Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health | Page 5

saturated with water, they are generally dried into lumps and clods, which are almost as impenetrable by roots as so many stones. The moisture which these clods contain is not available to plants, and their surfaces are liable to be dried by the too free circulation of air among the wide fissures between them. It is also worthy of incidental remark, that the cracking of heavy soils, shrinking by drought, is attended by the tearing asunder of the smaller roots which may have penetrated them.
*The Injurious Effects of Standing Water in the Subsoil* may be best explained in connection with the description of a soil which needs under-draining. It would be tedious, and superfluous, to attempt to detail the various geological formations and conditions which make the soil unprofitably wet, and render draining necessary. Nor,--as this work is intended as a hand-book for practical use,--is it deemed advisable to introduce the geological charts and sections, which are so often employed to illustrate the various sources of under-ground water; interesting as they are to students of the theories of agriculture, and important as the study is, their consideration here would consume space, which it is desired to devote only to the reasons for, and the practice of, thorough-draining.
To one writing in advocacy of improvements, of any kind, there is always a temptation to throw a tub to the popular whale, and to suggest some make-shift, by which a certain advantage may be obtained at half-price. It is proposed in this essay to resist that temptation, and to adhere to the rule that "whatever is worth doing, is worth doing well," in the belief that this rule applies in no other department of industry with more force than in the draining of land, whether for agricultural or for sanitary improvement. Therefore, it will not be recommended that draining be ever confined to the wettest lands only; that, in the pursuance of a penny-wisdom, drains be constructed with stones, or brush, or boards; that the antiquated horse-shoe tiles be used, because they cost less money; or that it will, in any case, be economical to make only such drains as are necessary to remove the water of large springs. The doctrine herein advanced is, that, so far as draining is applied at all, it should be done in the most thorough and complete manner, and that it is better that, in commencing this improvement, a single field be really well drained, than that the whole farm be half drained.
Of course, there are some farms which suffer from too much water, which are not worth draining at present; many more which, at the present price of frontier lands, are only worth relieving of the water which stands on the surface; and not a few on which the quantity of stone to be removed suggests the propriety of making wide ditches, in which to hide them, (using the ditches, incidentally, as drains). A hand-book of draining is not needed by the owners of these farms; their operations are simple, and they require no especial instruction for their performance. This work is addressed especially to those who occupy lands of sufficient value, from their proximity to market, to make it cheaper to cultivate well, than to buy more land for the sake of getting a larger return from poor cultivation. Wherever Indian corn is worth fifty cents a bushel, on the farm, it will pay to thoroughly drain every acre of land which needs draining. If, from want of capital, this cannot be done at once, it is best to first drain a portion of the farm, doing the work thoroughly well, and to apply the return from the improvement to its extension over other portions afterward.
In pursuance of the foregoing declaration of principles, it is left to the sagacity of the individual operator, to decide when the full effect desired can be obtained, on particular lands, without applying the regular system of depth and distance, which has been found sufficient for the worst cases. The directions of this book will be confined to the treatment of land which demands thorough work.
Such land is that which, at some time during the period of vegetation, contains stagnant water, at least in its sub-soil, within the reach of the roots of ordinary crops; in which there is not a free outlet at the bottom for all the water which it receives from the heavens, from adjoining land, or from springs; and which is more or less in the condition of standing in a great, water-tight box, with openings to let water in, but with no means for its escape, except by evaporation at the surface; or, having larger inlets than outlets, and being at times "water-logged," at least in its lower parts. The subsoil, to a great extent,