A PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATION. 221 



the soil are infinitely more easy than they would be if the land 

 were compact, were hard. 



Now, all lands, I think, have inherently, the power of self- 

 recuperation. I do not believe there is a rod of land in this 

 town that cannot be brought into fertility without adding one 

 particle of manure. Heaven has been more favorable to us 

 than to leave land in such a condition that it will always be 

 barren ; it only requires a fair chance. If it is skimmed over 

 with a crust, it may remain for a hundred years, and not become 

 fertile ; but if you remove that crust, and get it into a fine 

 tilled surface, it will improve from year to year, vegetation will 

 spring up on it, and grow luxuriantly. Now, one of the effects 

 of drainage is to give land a chance to do something for itself. 

 That will help it much, without the aid of ploughing, manuring, 

 or seeding, or anything of the kind. I could show you, within 

 half a mile of where we stand, a meadow that was covered with 

 hassocks from three to ten inches high — the whole meadow 

 nearly covered with those hard, unsightly, inconvenient has- 

 socks. A ditch was dug through the entire length of that 

 "ineadow, and a stone drain built. It lasted about seven years, 

 and it operated precisely as Judge French has said. A mole 

 would work its way down or up into the drain, and then would 

 come a heavy shower, and wash the fine mud down there, and 

 one winter, after the drain had been laid seven years, I noticed 

 a circle about six feet in diameter where the grass was just as 

 green in January as it was in June. I went up to see Avhat was 

 the cause of it, and found a warm stream bubbling up and 

 spreading all over this surface. The ditch had become filled up, 

 and the water had broken through the ground, and was suffi- 

 ciently warm to melt the snow and keep the grass green through 

 one of the severest winters we have had for fifteen years. Then 

 a tile drain was put down by the side of this stone drain, and 

 there has been no trouble since. One side of this meadow was 

 drained by lateral drains, and these were about twenty feet 

 apart, and four feet under ground. You see how rapid the 

 process must be, where you put drains down in that way. The 

 consequence was, that in the course of two or three years, 

 without carrying a plough upon the piece at all, or one particle 

 of manure or seed, every hassock disappeared, the ground 

 became smooth and beautiful, and timothy came up there four 



