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at present to do it, but your children must, and you will find it greatly 

 *u> your advantage to invest your surplus means in this manner, and 

 gradually relieve your farms from the constant danger of drought or 

 drowning to which they are now subject. If you have never under- 

 drained you know little of the capabilities of your soil. The world 

 cannot show fatter lands than some in your own county, but your 

 average production of wheat will now scarce exceed ten bushels to 

 the acre, where the English farmer, with it properly underdrained, 

 would make it produce forty. It is a great mistake with some men 

 tiiat it is as well and as cheap to raise twenty bushels from two acres as 

 from one, and so you will find it as you take the proper steps to relieve 

 the earth of the stagnant water that is now so apt to dwarf your 

 crops. In their present condition crops upon our flat lands may aptly 

 be compared to a considerable portion of our western people, who have 

 an abundance of food and a little too much of drink. 



Another portion of your county is a light sandy soil, easily made ex- 

 ceedingly productive, but almost barren unless frequently and freely 

 manured. On one of the finest farms I know anywhere, though not 

 without its need of manure, the barns have been constructed upon a little 

 stream, that its frequent overflowing may wash away the litter of the yard, 

 and save the necessity and trouble of carting it away. One corner of 

 this farm is a light deep sand, and in passing it I have frequently been 

 reminded of the ingenuity of man in appropriating the wisdom of the 

 brute creation. The hog, you know, when you give it swill, always 

 puts one foot in it to hold it down while he eats it. So this man, whilst 

 he provides a stream to carry oS" the manures, keeps this part of hie 

 farm plentifully stocked down to sorrel which prevents the wind from 

 blowing it away while he cultivates and harvests it. Providence, too, 

 is always kind in assisting such wisdom, for though wheat and oats are 

 frequently sown upon this field, I always notice that instead of wheat 

 or oaLs growing, nature still sends up abundantly this same sorrel to 

 hold the soil down. 



It will scarcely answer, upon some of our Southern Michigan lands, 

 to make streams the vehicles for carrying off our manures, for unless 

 we carefully preserve and judiciously apply them, we may plow and 

 sow, but when we come to reap, we still find our wheat tujued to milk- 

 weeds, and our clover to sorrel. 



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