300 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



more than two or three times during the season, it will suffer 

 materially for want of water, even though the soil is wet one-half 

 the time ; — because during the other half, it will be baked dry and 

 hard, excluding the air by whose circulation alone, in time of 

 drought, can a sufficient supply of water be deposited in the soil. 



Looseness of texture in the soil is important, not only as affording 

 access to air, but also because it allows of the free and wide- 

 spread ramification of the smaller feeding roots. These would 

 not penetrate a solid clod of even the richest earth, while, if the 

 same clod were finely pulverized, every part of it would be pene- 

 trated by corn roots, and the plant food contained in it would 

 become available. Therefore, it is best that the soil should be of 

 a sort not apt to bake, and that it should be made as fine as possi- 

 ble before planting, and kept as fine as possible as long as the size 

 of the crop will allow it to be worked. 



Drainage is more important than any other item in the prepara- 

 tion of land for corn, unless the soil is already naturally drained. 

 Stagnant water in the soil — and upon it — is absolutely fatal to suc- 

 cess, and whatever care we may take might almost as well be thrown 

 away if we allow the want of proper under-draining to keep the 

 soil sometimes too cold, sometimes too dry, and always too stiff 

 and compact. That the want of draining will produce all of these 

 unfavorable conditions, no one need be told who has had an 

 opportunity to see how they all gradually vanish when wet land is 

 thoroughly under-drained. 



The manner in which the corn crop of much of our best corn- 

 growing region has been this year (1869) destroyed by excessive 

 wet^ the farmers of Central Illinois do not need to be told. 



In view of the foregoing principles, I submit the following as 

 a good course to pursue in the commencement of a rotation, of 

 which corn is the first crop. 



(Other plans may be as good — under certain circumstances they 

 may be even better — but, so far as it is possible to lay down gen- 

 eral rules, I believe that this is, on the whole, the best ; and I am 

 confident that all who follow it will be satisfied with the result.) 



