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suitable avenues for escaping from the land. This large body of water 

 was removed by the heat of the sun, and during its evaporation, pois- 

 onous gases were evolved, which had a baneful effect on the human 

 frame. Health is the greatest of all blessings, and everything that 

 tends to preserve or promote it, is a benefit to the community ; for this 

 reason thorough draining ought to be encouraged by every means, and 

 practiced in every district. 



And it is not alone on the health of mankind, that draining exercises 

 a beneficial influence. The domestic animals are much improved by 

 the same cause. Horses and cattle thrive better on dry than on wet 

 land, and every description of vegetable and forage plant thrives better 

 in drained than in undrained soil. Sheep never thrive well in low, wet 

 pastures, and they should not be kept in such localities. Nature has 

 placed the sheep in warm climates, and generally in the dryest and most 

 elevated regions. How then can we expect to be successful in raising 

 sheep in undrained land, and in pastures overflowing with water. Let 

 U8 imitate nature, and furnish them with dry pastures, and localities 

 suited to their wants. 



Nearly every kind of cultivated plant requires a dry soil. Stagnant 

 water is extremely injurious to vegetation. Grain crops of every kind 

 are subject to many diseases in wet land, from which they are compara- 

 tively free in dry soils. Mildew and rust, smut and blight of every 

 kind delight in wet soils, and are doubly destructive in such places. 

 Potatoes in undrained land are subject to the rot, as the rain water, 

 which sometimes contains deleterious acids, remains too long in contact 

 with the tuber, and the rot is the consequence. 



Drainage enables plants to resist the heat of summer, for the land 

 being relieved from excess of moisture, becomes dry and friable and 

 does not crack into fissures, nor bake into impenetrable clods, as soils do 

 which are for one-half of the year covered with stagnant water, and 

 for the other half exposed to the rays of the sun. When land had been 

 well drained and subsoiled, the roots of plants can penetrate to a con- 

 siderable depth, and draw up those mineral ingredients which some- 

 times lie far beneath the surface. 



Frost takes a firm hold on wet land, and sometimes destroys the crops 

 in cold marshy soils, whilst well drained and warm soils are free from 

 its withering influence. 



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