THE AMERICAN FARMER. 43 



rolling and sloping position, — so much so that my draining 

 operations have caused nearly all who beheld them, to wonder 

 that I should incur so great an expense in draining land which 

 was already — as they thought — quite dry enough. Tlie loam- 

 soil extends to the depth of fifteen or eighteen inches, below 

 which there is uniformly a tenacious or hard-pan subsoil, which 

 is about as impervious to water as an unmixed clay, and when 

 dry is very hard, so that in digging the drains, a well-sharpened 

 pickaxe is always necessary, as soon as the surface-soil is re- 

 moved, which is done with a common spade. The subsoil, 

 after being made loose with a pickaxe, is thrown out with a 

 round-pointed, long-handled shovel ; and the ditch is only 

 made wide enough for the operator to work the shovel in, and 

 he, standing one foot before the other in the ditch, plies the 

 shovel, and bearing the forward hand upon the forward knee, 

 as a fulcrum, operates with comparative ease and advantage." 



As to the advantages, the same farmer says : " Some of tlio 

 advantages derived from draining are, that the ground becomes 

 about as dry in two or three days after the frost comes out in 

 the spring, or after a heavy rain, as it would do in as many 

 weeks, before draining ; enabling the farmer to work his land 

 at any time he may desire to do so ; it also dries it uniformly, 

 all over the field, so that in ploughing, he does not find spots of 

 wet and dry, but all is in good condition at once. It causes the 

 lowest places, which are generally too wet at seed time, and 

 consequently produced but little if any crop, to produce the 

 best of any part of the field, being generally the richest soil, 

 from having had the wash of the surface of the land about it 

 for many years. I will only estimate the increased value of 

 the land by saying that I have the past year made over 1,200 

 rods, on twenty acres, at a cost of about ^25 per acre, and that 

 I should not permit such land to remain without draining, 

 were the expense double." 



Next, as to the objection on the score of the expense of labor 

 and the abundance of land in this country. This seems at 

 first, very plausible ; but it is a feeble argument and amounts 

 to nothing. If you possess an acre of land, is it more profitable 

 to cultivate it, or let it lie in a state of nature ? The answer 

 will be, to cultivate it. And if so, is it not better to cultivate 

 it well ; that is, to enrich it carefully, and with due regard to 



