AND GROUND SURFACES. 41 



Drainage. 



The absolute necessity of deep subsoil drainage is known to 

 all intelligent agriculturists and gardeners ; but on the supposition 

 that among our readers are town-bred people who have not had 

 occasion to become well-informed in even the rudiments of horti- 

 culture, we will state broadly, that deep and thorough sub-soil 

 drainage is the most essential of all preparations for the growth of 

 trees and shrubs ; without which neither care nor surface enrich- 

 ment of the soil will develop their greatest beauty. Many valuable 

 shrubs cannot survive the winters of the middle States in imper- 

 fectly drained soils, which in those deeply drained and cultivated 

 are hardy and healthy. In Chapter XVI 1 1, on the philosophy of 

 deep drainage and cultivation, and the treatment of half-hardy 

 trees and shrubs, to which, in this connection, the reader's atten- 

 tion is earnestly invited, the results of drainage are more fully 

 treated. The same causes which make the most thorough drain- 

 age of the soil a //^-requisite to success in growing half-hardy 

 trees, act with equal efficiency to give fuller health and greater vigor 

 to those which are hardy. The white oak may continue to grow, 

 in a slow and meagre way, in a soil filled during most of the year 

 with superfluous moisture ; but if that same soil were deeply and 

 completely drained the annual growth would be doubled, and the 

 increased abundance and finer color of the foliage becomes as 

 marked as the difference between an uncultivated and a well-tilled 

 field of corn. A lilac bush growing in a soil cold with constant 

 moisture a little below the surface, will develop only surface roots ; 

 and having no deep hold in the soil, its main stems will hang to one 

 side or another with a sort of inebriate weakness. But if the soil 

 is dry, deep, and porous, when the plant is set out, the roots strike 

 down deep and strong, the stem will exhibit a sturdy vigor, and the 

 top a well-balanced, low-spreading luxuriance, never seen in cold 

 undrained soils. Even willows, much as they love a moist soil, are 

 much more healthy and symmetrical when planted in well-drained 

 than in wet places ; — their peculiarity being to flourish best where 

 their roots can find water by seeking it, as an animal goes to a 

 stream and stoops to drink, but not by standing in it perpetually. 



