BENEFITS OF DRAINAGE. 75 



humid climates, because our extremes, in all except low 

 temperatures, are more exacting. Correct practice here 

 gives grand results, but ill-timed or illy adapted practice 

 does not give merely less satisfactory results: it invites 

 failure. Our drainage proposition must always be con- 

 ditioned upon proper conservation of moisture, and, as 

 will be seen as we proceed with the discussion, contem- 

 plated artificial drainage may have the power to make or 

 ruin a crop if its action is not intelligently employed, or 

 intelligently rejected, as the case may require. 



Benefits of Drainage. It may be admitted at the outset 

 that in regions of heavy rainfall or in locations subject 

 to much percolation from higher lands, underdrainage 

 may be necessary to satisfactory use of the land in win- 

 ter gardening unless the soil is deep and free enough to 

 readily dispose of the surplus water. As a matter of 

 fact, it is necessary in some cases, and gratifying results 

 follow in lowering the ground water, admitting air, warm- 

 ing the soil, making it hospitable to the plant, rendering 

 fertility available and lengthening the growing season 

 of the plant both by these services and by making the 

 soil sooner amenable to tillage and susceptible of better 

 tilth. All these are general drainage principles applicable 

 here as elsewhere and in some soils and situations the 

 same method of application is best, viz. : thorough under- 

 drainage preferably with tile but also attainable with 

 trenches partly filled with rock, or with regular runways 

 with placed stones or poles or boards or whatever may 

 be most available to the person at the time. In drainage 

 for garden purposes, however, it is not necessary that 

 the water table should be lowered as far as is essential 

 to the satisfactory growth of trees, nor is it desirable 

 generally that it should be. Tile laid two feet from the 

 surface will answer in most cases if the land lies well 

 for the outflow of the drainage. 



Conserving Moisture. The general purpose in Califor- 

 nia gardening must be to save moisture, not to facilitate 



