258 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



the feeding of cattle thereon, the careful husbanding of 

 manures, the steady purchasing of foodstuffs to be fed 

 in winter supplementing the grass, and the saving and 

 use of liquid manures, may all help account for this 

 maintenance of fertility with no great depth of soil free 

 from water saturation. Then there are in that land cer- 

 tain clovers, both red and white, that do not need great 

 depth of root; they grow well intermixed with the 

 grasses, and all help to keep the soil literally as "rich as 

 mud." In America under ordinary conditions I am sure 

 that it is wise to drain as deeply as one well can; in 

 Scotland and England I found glorious meadow land 

 drained as perfectly as possible to depths of from 4' to 7'. 



Deep Drainage Prevents Effects of Drouth. Curi- 

 ously enough, deeply-drained land suffers less from 

 drouth than the more shallow-drained, the reason being 

 that, in the deeply-drained soil, roots learn to feed down 

 to great depths. I have seen barley roots penetrate 

 nearly 10' in three months' growing, and all grasses root 

 more deeply than we suppose. The fine fibrous feeding 

 roots go far down if there is anything worth going after, 

 but they never go into standing water; they drink the 

 water that is called film moisture only. If we had con- 

 ditions of soil and climate like the Hollanders, we could 

 do no better than imitate their water meadows and pas- 

 tures, but except along tidal flats and in a few isolated 

 regions we can not so imitate, and must drain and pre- 

 pare crops to feed and forage deep and wide during 

 our seasons of heat and drouth. 



Need of Carbonate of Lime. Rich and productive 

 soils everywhere are those which have enough carbonate 



