MANURE MORE EFFECTIVE. 125 



for, by becoming more open and warmer, the two 

 great natural processes by which the food of plants 

 is prepared and rendered soluble (weathering and 

 decay) proceed more rapidly, and to a greater depth. 

 Hence the same quantity of manure is more effect- 

 ive on drained than on undrained land. 



" Finally, production becomes more certain. It is 

 evident the farmer, by draining, changes a jiclde and 

 less fertile into a surer and far more jjroductive and 

 grateful soil, and renders it, to a certain degree, in- 

 dependent of the weather, inasmuch as he carries 

 away harmlessly those extremes to which the in- 

 habitants of the northern hemisphere are most 

 commonly exposed. The dread that the rain and 

 snow-water would wash the manure out of the soil, 

 and rob it of its soluble nutriment in filtering 

 throiigh the earth, has proved quite unfounded in 

 deep draining." 



ir 



