88 HANDT-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



must be believed before farming can become in America what it 

 already (and by means of drainage) has become in England, and 

 before our farmers can be so successful as they ought to be and 

 as they have the means of becoming. 



The cost of draining (and its cost is the great obstacle to its 

 adoption) should be compared, not with the cost of the land, but 

 with the capital on which the yearly cost of labor, seed, and manure 

 is the interest. For instance, the following is a very moderate 

 estimate of the expense of raising an acre of Indian corn, when 

 it is intended to be the first crop of a rotation running through 

 four or five years : — 



Plowing $5 oo 



Harrowing I 50 



Manure 1 2 00 



Seed 50 



Planting *2 00 



Cultivation (hoeing, &c.) 7 50 



Harvesting 10 00 



$38 50 



This is a constant quantity, and is an outlay that must be made 

 on wet land as well as on dry, on cheap land as well as on dear. 

 It is (at seven per cent.) the interest on over $500. That and 

 the $50 paid for the land make the total investment of capital in 

 the operation. 



It will be a good crop — a very good one — on such land as we 

 are describing (" naturally cold " land) that yields fifty bushels of 

 corn and two tons of fodder, worth $57 50 — or about 10 per cent, 

 on the investment of $550. 



By precisely the same manuring and cultivation, on the same 

 land, after thorough underdraining, (say at a cost of $100 per acre, 

 although this is too high,) in a season that would yield the above 

 crop on the undrained land, we should surely get seventy-five 

 bushels of corn and three tons of fodder, worth $86 25, or thir- 

 teen and a third per cent, interest on an investment of $650. 



This difference of crops, (an increase of fifty per cent.,) costmg 

 only the interest on the outlay for draining, which is as permanent 

 as the land itself, is not more than may be expected under average 



