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TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



tile draining should at once command the attention of this association, and of the peo- 

 ple of this great Prairie State. 



Parker Earle of South Pass, Union County, read an essay on 

 DRAINAGE AND DEEP CULTURE. 



The subject of land drainage and deep culture is big: enough for a volume, and I can 

 only attempt to give some general reasons for it, in the few minutes I shall occupy. 



Drainage and subsoiling (or trenching) must be regarded as complements of each other, 

 in every system of thorough cultivation. Horace Greely said many years ago, that all land 

 worth cultivating, needed underdraining, which is a short way of saying that the light 

 sandy and gravelly soils which need no artificial draining, are of little value compared 

 with the heavy and substantial clays and loams, all of which need drainage when not 

 bottomed on gravel. But drainage though the most important, is but a part of good 

 culture in a soil like ours ; it should be completed by subsoiling or trenching, according 

 to the depth of the soil and the kind of crops it is to bear. 



It is doubtless true that either of these operations alone, will be of benefit to our soil 

 — deep working alone, showing but temporary results, while tile draining if well done, 

 will be a permanent improvement, and show increasing good results from year to year. 



I think that our Egyptian soil, both high and low land — steep slopes and comparative 

 levels, alike — all need this treatment, and that this system of improvement lies at the 

 very foundation of everything of more than ordinary success in both agriculture and hor- 

 ticulture. And I think it is quite time that fruit-growers, in a country capable of yielding 

 such large returns for thorough culture, should begin to do some deeper work than the 

 shallow surface scarification pursued by the rudest tillers of the soil, in all countries. 

 There are few regions where the inducements to generous culture are so great, for there 

 are few soils which from location and quality will make so rich a return. The expenses 

 of either tile draining, or deep working must be materially less here than in New Eng- 

 land or New York, as our soil is quite free from stones and entirely so from hardpan, and 

 is very homogeneous in character. 



One of the most obvious and important results of this system, is the very great equilib- 

 rium of heat and moisture produced — that temperate medium between hot and cold, 

 wet and dry, which is essential to enduring health and vigor in the world of vegetable 

 life. 



A wet soil is necessarily a cold soil, as the conversion of water into vapor uses up the 

 warmth of the ground to such an extent as to seriously impede vegetation, after dimin- 

 ishing the temperature from 15 to 25 degrees. Hence, underdrained, retentive land warms 

 up slowly in the spring and cools early in the fall, favoring early frosts ; while in our dry 

 summers, the moisture being exhausted and evaporation ceasing, the soil is baked, the 

 roots of plants, (which must in our shallow system lie near the surface,) are dried, per- 

 haps beyond the limits of vitality. And so from these excesses of moisture, and drouth, 

 cold and heat, numberless mildews, blight and gentral diseases are induced through the 

 whole vegetable realm. 



This is the system of- extremes. With deep culture and drainage, all this is reversed. 

 The surplus water is rapidly carried away, evaporation is moderate in spring, the soil 

 warms up, and vegetation starts with vigor. But the constant heats of summer do not 



