THOROUGH DRAINING. 267 



THOROUGH DRAINING. 



ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS AND RESULTS. 



This, now, is one of the great openings for improvement of farms in the Old 

 States. By its means, an immense quantity of land, worse than waste, may be 

 })rought into play, the value of whicii cannot well be overrated ; fur, in the first 

 place, the land to be by this means reclaimed is generally the best on the estate 

 naturally ; and, secondly, it may be then laid down to grass, and produce for 

 years heavy crops, without expense of cultivation ; and we need not add that the 

 most lamentable deficiency in the resources of the American farmer is want of 

 grass. 



No agriculturist of the right sort of sense and ambition can "sleep easy in his 

 bed," if he does not feel sure that, while he is drawing from his land the fair 

 results of well-directed labor, his estate is at the same time in a course of pro- 

 gressive improvement ! That he should aim at, as one of the principal items to 

 be carried to the credit side, in his account of proht and loss ; and, without look- 

 ing closely to that, he is just as sure to be finally overtaken with bankruptcy 

 as the merchant, who would not be trusted by any one on 'Change who should 

 know him to be guilty of neglect in keeping accounts. 



Well, how is he to make sure of this progressive improvement in the product- 

 iveness and the value of his estate, unless he make sure of an adequate supply 

 9f manure ? Ay, my dear reader, you may blink the matter, if j^ou will, for the 

 moment — you may try to postpone and get round it — but to that you must 

 come at last. There is no other way — no short cut to escape from ruin to your 

 land and yourself — unless, by some means, you feed it with manure, at least 

 equal to what your crops and your animals carry off it. For the farmer is be- 

 ginning now to understand that, in the very blood and bones of every beef he 

 consumes or sells, there is a certain amount of the productive capacity of his 

 land subtracted from it. You might just as well expect a mill-hopper to go on 

 yielding meal, without pouring in the grist, as your farm to continue, without 

 food, to give full crops ; and the most sure, obvious and reliable resource for 

 manure is grass. The want of it is as fatal, in most cases, as the loss of the 

 horse-shoe nail, as related by Dr. Franklin — where, for want of the nail, the shoe 

 was lost ; and for want of the shoe the horse fell lame, the messenger failed 

 in his journey, and great calamity fell on the State. 



In England, where they have a moist climate and plenty of capital, they keep 

 up and greatly increase the fertility of their lands by a single root. Yes, the 

 population, the wealth, the power of England is in her turnips. We might have 

 them, too, in our country, as we aje inclined to believe, to a much greater ex- 

 tent than we do, if farmers would well manure and thoroughly prepare their 

 land, and sow much earlier. There 's Mr. Sotham, on Mr. Coming's estate, near 

 Albany, never fails in a heavy crop of Swedes. But at any rate, to come back 

 to our subject, much may be done toward having the means of keeping stock to 

 increase the manure by draining. Even the smallest spots — say many half acres, 

 here and there — might and ought to be thus reclaimed. But, then, it must be 

 thoroughly done. There is no work the result of which so much depends on 



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