Farm Draina<;e. 367 



dered almost indifferent to the severest drouth or wettest 

 season, by a thorough sj^stem of under-draining 



George E. Warring, of Rhode Island, says : " With our 

 land thoroughly improved by draining, we may carry on 

 the operation of farming with as much certainty of success, 

 and with as great immunity from the ill effects of unfavora- 

 ble weather, as can be expected from any business where 

 results depend on such a variety of circumstances. We 

 shall have substituted certainty for chance, as far as it is in 

 our power to do so, and shall have made farming an art 

 rather than a venture." 



The farmer, more than any other class, accepts his lot, 

 and plods through his hard life, piously ascribing to an 

 inscrutable Providence the trials which come of his neglect 

 to use the means of relief which lie within his reach. 



Perhaps some one is thinking this is all true, but will it pay to 

 go into this expense ? We Yankees are looking into the 

 " will it pay ?'' too much for our own good, many times. But 

 this is not one of those cases. It will pay in dollars and 

 cents, as I shall attempt to show. I am satisfied that where 

 land is worth fifty dollars per acre, or where corn is worth 

 one dollar per bushel, or hay fifteen dollars per ton, it will 

 pay. I have seen a meadow of fifty acres which produced 

 nothing but swamp grass and flags, a part of which was too 

 wet to hardly step upon. The value of all that could be 

 taken from it would not pay for the labor, taxes and fencing, 

 and yet this land was converted by drains into a field on 

 which fifty bushels of corn, or two hundred bushels of pota- 

 toes, or sixty bushels of oats, or three tons of good English 

 hay, was raised per acre yearly ; and it could be plowed 



