78 AGRICULTURE 



Terraces often inconvenient, but necessary. Terraces 

 decrease washing, but make many short rows, increase the 

 cost of cultivation, and interfere with the use of improved 

 implements. They are needed only in hilly regions. In 

 Virginia and Tennessee and northward they are seldom 

 used, partly because wheat or oats, pasture or hay plants, 

 alternate with hoed crops and the fields are not cultivated 

 so continuously as in the cotton belt. Farmers in the 

 Gulf states who do likewise, and who plow deep, can 

 often do without terraces as long as no washes appear in 

 the fields. 



What lands need drainage. Drainage is needed on 

 fields where water stands in ponds for a long time after a 

 rain, where water oozes to the surface making seepy spots, 

 and on land where swamp plants grow freely or where water 

 stands in a post hole within several feet of the surface, dur- 

 ing the growing season. Fortunately the greater part of the 

 hill lands of the Gulf and South Atlantic states needs little 

 or no artificial drainage except that intended to prevent 

 washing. On bottom land and on some very stiff or seepy 

 upland fields, however, drainage is generally needed. 



Drainage makes roots go deeper into the soil. While 

 the purpose of terracing is to cause porous soils to absorb 

 most of the water that falls on them, in order to prevent 

 washing, the object of drainage is to remove the excess of 

 water from soils that otherwise would hold too much water. 



Strange as it may seem at first, plants are better able to 

 endure a drought on drained than on undrained land. This 

 is because the roots go only as deep into the soil as the air 

 penetrates freely. Drainage opens channels for the air to 



