UNDERDRAINING. Ill 



The field had been thoroughly and carefully cultivated, for 

 many years previous to coming into my possession, by some 

 of the best farmers in our county. It was always a difficult 

 piece of land to till, owing to the surface water, and to its 

 hardness in a dry season, and its coldness in a wet one. 

 Some form of drainage had always been found necessary 

 for its cultivation ; and through its entire length ran a deep 

 and wide, open ditch, on each side of which the land was 

 laid out in beds about forty feet wide, raised in the middle as 

 high as the plough could raise it, and divided by deep, dead 

 furrows. 



I determined to drain it in the autumn of 1857. The crop 

 of that year had been about a ton of hay to the acre — of a 

 poor quality. The land was filled with water grasses and 

 various aquatic weeds, and during the season to which I 

 refer, it was seldom free from stagnant surface water, collected 

 in the hollows and dead furrows. In many portions of the 

 field the cultivated grasses were entirely destroyed. 



After the hay crop was removed, I ploughed the field, for 

 the purpose of manuring and seeding again to grass ; but I 

 found at once that such an operation would be utterly useless. 

 The soil of a large section was stiff, cold and clammy, and in 

 spite of the high manuring to which it has been subjected, it 

 had still that slaty color which distinguishes a water-soaked 

 earth from the rich brown of well-tilled and well-drained 

 loam. It was evident that all my manure and labor would 

 be wasted, even in attempting to raise a grass crop, that 

 hardiest of all products, just as manure and labor had been 

 previously wasted in the cultivation of corn and roots on the 

 same field, on account of the disastrous effects of water. I 

 therefore abandoned my original plan ; and as the field lies 

 very near my barnyard, in a convenient proximity to the 

 manure heap, and at such a distance from my farm-house that 

 no time would be lost by the laborers in going to and from it, 

 I concluded to devote it to constant cultivation. For I have 

 always found that a farmer cannot afford to transport manure 

 to the distant fields of his farm, while his grass lands lie at his 

 threshold ; neither can he afford to employ his laborers in long 

 journeys from their meals to their labor, especially with the 

 hoe and weeder. 



