308 IS EqUIVALE.NT TO A I EEPENING OF THE SOIL. 



telligcnl farmer, who applies every available means to the successful 

 prosecution of his art, the promise even in our age and country is sure 

 — "that seed-time and harvest shall never fail." 



8°. But on lands of every kind this removal of the superfluous wafer 

 is productive of another practical benefit. In its consequences it is equi- 

 valent to an actual deepening of the soil. 



When land on which the surface water is in the habit of resting, be- 

 comes dry enough to admit the labours of the husbandman, it is still 

 found to be wet beneath, and the waters, even in dry seasons, not unfre- 

 quently remain where the roots of the crops w^ould otherwise be inclined 

 to come. Or, if the surface soil permit a ready passage to the rains, and 

 waters linger only in the moist subsoil, still — though the farmer may 

 not be delayed in his labours — the subsoil repels the approach of the 

 roots of his grain, and compels them to seek their nourishment from the 

 surface soil only. But remove the waters, and the soil becomes dry to 

 a greater depth. The air penetrates and diffuses itself wherever the 

 waters have been. The roots now freely and safely descend into the 

 almost virgin soil beneath. And not only have they a larger space 

 through which to send their fibres in search of food, but in this hitherto 

 ungenial soil they find a store of substances — but sparingly present, it may 

 be, in the soil above — which the long- continued washing of the rains, 

 or the demands of frequent crops, may have removed, but which may 

 have been all the time accumulating in the subsoil, into which the 

 roots of cultivated plants could rarely with safety descend. It is not 

 wonderful then that the economical effects of draining should be found 

 by practical men to be not only a diminution in the cost of cultivation, 

 but a considerably augmented produce also both in corn and grass; or 

 that this increased produce should alone be found sufficient to repay the 

 entire cost of thorough-draining in two or three yeBxs. 



An obvious practical suggestion arises out of the knowledge of this 

 fact. The deeper the drains, provided the water have still a. ready escape^ 

 the greater the depth of soil which is rendered available for the purposes 

 of vegetable nutiition. Deep-rooted plants, such as lucerne, often fail, 

 even in moderately deep soils, because an excess of water or the 

 presence of some noxious ingredient which deep drains would remove, 

 prevents their natural descent in search of food. Even plants, which, 

 like that of wheat or clover, do not usually send down their roots so far, 

 will yet, where the subsoil is sound and dry, extend their fibres for three 

 or more feet in depth, in quest of more abundant tiourishment. 



Not only, then, do deep drains permit the use of the subsoil plough 

 without the chance tii injury, — not only are they less liable to be choked 

 up by the accumulated roots of plants which naturally make their way 

 into them in search of water, — but they also increase the value and per- 

 manent fertility of the land, by increasing its available depth. In other 

 words, that kind of drainage which is most efficiently perforrned, with a 

 regard to the greatest number of contingencies, will not only be the most 

 permanent, but will also be followed by the greatest number of eccnomi- 

 cal advantages. 



lowing and limeing, it was sown with oats in spring, of which it always produced very poor 

 crops. It is now so dry as to grow very good crops of turnip or rape, and except in two 

 instances, I have always sown my wheat in capital order." — Prize Essays of the Highland 

 and Agrictdtural Society, I., p. 243. 



