STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 87 



rain-water imparts Its superior heat to the cold soil through which it passes. In its 

 track follows also the warm air of the surface, Imparting its heat, and carrying its 

 oxygen to the organic and mineral parts of the soil, ami tlms hastening on the pro- 

 cesses of fermentation and decay, and the formation of the new chemical combinations 

 by which these elements become available for the growth of vegetation. 



In this way a cold tenacious and comparatively barren soil, will in time become 

 warm and porous, and susceptible of a high state of cultivation and of productiveness. 



But the ground is often saturated with water possessing no fertilizing elements. 

 These it has already deposited in the soil of adjacent lands. It comes upon you as an 

 intruder in the form of ooze or spring water. It has already passed through your 

 neighbor's soil, and parted with its heat and its elements of fertility. Land saturated 

 with this water is, in the common language of the tanner, called " spouty land." 

 Such lands, though rich in crude elements of fertility, are comparatively barrel) and 

 unproductive ; and the man who cultivates them may safely be classed among those 

 who indulge in games of hazzard and of chance. 



We have millions of acres of this cold, wet land on these prairies, and it can never 

 become regularly productive until there is a way provided for the escape of this cold 

 and stagnant water through an outlet in the sub-soil, in distinction from its passing off 

 by the slow and damaging processes of soakage and evaporation. 



If the foregoing statement of facts and principles be correct, it is evicent to the most 

 casual observer, that the cultivators of the soil, the Farmers and the Horticulturists 

 of the country, have attached far too little importance to the subject of under- 

 draining. 



l'< rsonal observations made in New England, large portions of New York, Ohio, 

 Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Kentucky, and well authenticated 

 information in relation to other States of the Union , bring inc to the irresistible con- 

 clusion, that at least two-thirds of the cultivated portions of our entire country would 

 he greatly benefited by the adoption and execution of a thorough system of artificial 

 under-draining. Until these lands an; drained, time, labor, and money spent in culti- 

 vating and improving them, mnst be to a large extent squandered ; crop must lie un- 

 certain ; and the faithful and patient, thougb unintelligent endeavors of the fanner and 

 horticulturist, must remain unrewarded. 



H hilst the mysterious principle of vegetable life is now, and always must be involved 

 in obscurity, the outward conditions necessary to the germination of seeds, to 1I13 

 growth and development Of plants, are fixed and certain and easily understood. The 

 law has gone forth and it must be obeyed, that these conditions must be compiled 

 with, or the seed will not germinate, the plant will not grow. 



The seed that is buried in soil that is below a certain temperature, that is too wet or 

 too dry, or from which the air is excluded, must perish without germinating. Indian 

 corn germinates at about 55 degrees Farenheit. Deposited in soil whose temperature 

 Is at 50 degrees, il is certain to rot. Thus we see how it is that millions of bushels of 

 seeds perish annually in our cold und rained soils, and the planters 1 toil is unrewarded. 



Ordinary vegetation will not grow at all in soil below 45 degrees, and il i.s certain it 



not make a vigorous growth in soil but little above that temperature. The tree 



or the plant, with few exceptions, tvhose roots penetrate into a cold and '.vet soil, or 



whose root- are but Jusl above tin- water level, let the temperature be what It may, 



can at best make but a feeble and Blckly growth ; and the cultivator beslows his labor 



