THOROUGH-DRAINING. Utl 



Diiicli better crop to boot. So far I bave alluded to corn 

 crops, but in our days tbe root crops bave g-rown into an 

 importance almost g-reater tban tbose of corn, especially on 

 soils of inferior fpiality. It becomes, tben, a great desidera- 

 tum to substitute turnips for naked fallows in all possible 

 cases; and tbis, tborougb-draining enables us in a gTeat 

 measure to do. I have seen a field wbicli, previous to 

 draining, never was thought capable of growing turnips, 

 produce a crop the year after being drained which was sold, 

 for eating- on the land, at GI. per acre; and the produce of the 

 barley crop in the succeeding year was double of what it had 

 ever been known to grow before ; thus returning- the entix-e 

 cost of draining- in those two seasons. But on land less 

 unfavourable, and on which tiu-nips have hitherto been culti- 

 vated, though at great risk from wet seasons, the advantage 

 of draining is found in its easier and earlier cultivation, in 

 the greater certainty of its produce, the ease and com- 

 paratively small injury which attends the removal of the 

 crop from the field, and the increased benefit derived both, 

 by the land and stock if consumed on the ground. Every 

 one knows how much better sheep thrive on dry than 

 damp land, and how much less waste of food is occasioned. 

 But it is not to tillage lands only that the benefit of drain- 

 ing is confined. I know a rough ox pasture for which an 

 allowance for draining was made by the landlord, biit which 

 did not finish the job, and a part is left yet undone by the 

 tenant. The part which was first drained comes earlier, and 

 affords a full bite to cattle three or four weeks sooner than 

 the other, and is, besides, so much sweeter and more nutri- 

 tious that they are constantly upon it, and never upon the 

 other till necessity compels them. By abstracting the 

 •water, the coarse and aquatic plants are destroyed, and again 

 succeeded by grasses of finer quality and earlier growth, by 

 which means the value of the pasture is much increased. 

 The beneficial effects of rain in promoting vegetation are 

 - too well known, and too obvious to require remark : every 

 shower conveys a })ortion of ammonia from the atmosphere 

 to the earth, and communicates a fertilizing- property. It is 

 only when the land is saturated with it, and when, instead 

 of passing through, it remains in it till abstracted by evapo- 

 ration, that it becomes pernicious. The most intense cold is 

 produced by a process of evaporation ; and if water, falling 

 upon land with a retentive subsoil, is left to be removed by 

 that means, which in winter is very slow, the earth is 



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