LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 303 



permit us to read an extract from Walter Bligh's rationale of thorough drain- 

 age in 1650, 



"The goodness of the water is as it were, riddled, screened, and strained out 

 into the land, leaving the richness, and the leanness sliding away from it. 

 The benefits of drainage are stated thus: 1. The cold and sour standing 

 water, which drowns vegetation and packs the soil, is filtered through. 2. By 

 this filtering the manurial portions of the water are left in the soil. 3. The 

 soil being thus opened the aerial gases, especially oxygen, enter it and 

 decompose the organic matters so that they can be taken up by and nourish 

 the plants. 4. By lessening the evaporation and opening the soil to admit 

 the air and warm rains (in place of cold standing water), the temperature of 

 the land is raised. 5. It equalizes the temperature and prevents sudden 

 changes of heat and cold. 6. It renders the soil drier and warmer earlier in 

 the spring and later in the fall, thus greatly prolonging the planting and 

 growing season. 7. In dry seasons the soil is moistened by condensation from 

 the air admitted into it not only from above, but also from the drains beneath. 

 8. The soil thus made more open and mellow, roots penetrate farther, and 

 get more nutriment. 9. The open, dry soil absorbs miasmatic gases, which 

 enrich the soil and purify the air, thus increasing wealth and health ; foot rot, 

 and other diseases of animals, decrease on drained lands. 10. Grasses improve 

 in kinds, quantity, and quality; the finer and richer supersede the coarse, 

 sour kinds; the greenness is made more enduring as the season of growth is 

 prolonged." 



Emerson's playful argument is quoted : '' By drainage we have gone to the 

 sub-soil, and we have a Concord under Concord, a Middlesex under Middlesex, 

 and a basement story of Macomb county more valuable than all the super- 

 structure." 



Tiles are political economists ; they are so many young Americas announcing 

 a better era, — a day of fat things. 



FARM DRAINAGE. 



BY HIRAM ANDREWS, OF ORION. 

 [Read at Farmington Institute.] 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : The question of drainage, or 

 of finding some method to dispose of the surplus or stagnant water, that ac- 

 cumulates on a large portion of our agricultural lands, is one that has at- 

 tracted the attention of the agriculturist for centuries ; one upon which a 

 large amount of money and labor has been expended ; one upon which various 

 plans and theories have been experimented — on some with success — others 

 have proved a failure. The fact that it is necessary to dispose of the stag- 

 nant water, in order to assist the early growth of vegetation, has become so 

 well established, that it is not necessary to enter into an argument to prove it. 

 Nature has provided a general system of drainage, through her rivers, creeks, 

 rivulets, ravines, and the rolling and uneven surface of the earth, by which 

 the larger portion of surplus water, which may accumulate from heavy storms, 

 finds its way back to the ocean. Yet it is an established fact, that after the 



