DRAINAGE IMPORTANT TO HEALTH. 339 



peeled off, and their substance mealy when boiled. 

 Live stock of every description thrive, show good 

 temper, are easily fattened, and of fine quality. Land 

 is less occupied with weeds, the increased luxuriance of 

 all the crops checking their growth. Summer fallow 

 is more easily cleaned, and much less work is required 

 to put the land in proper order for the manure and 

 seed ; and all sorts of manures incorporate more quickly 

 and thoroughly with the soil." 



Taking all these benefits into consideration, we may 

 well desire to see the practice of draining become 

 universal in all the low lands of this country and of 

 Ireland. Indeed, it is not merely as a matter of 

 national and individual benefit as it respects our crops 

 and live stock that we have to view it, for medical ob- 

 servations have shown that in districts which have been 

 thoroughly drained, fever and ague, which previously 

 formed nearly one half of the diseases of the people, 

 have now almost entirely disappeared. Perhaps many 

 persons now in middle life will remember that in their 

 childhood they heard much more of these complaints 

 than at present, and that ague especially was commonly 

 spoken of as a disease which they were likely, without 

 care, to suffer from. 



That we now hear comparatively little of this painful 

 complaint, and that both ague and fever are much less 

 fatal and extensive in their ravages than formerly, we 

 greatly owe, through God's mercy, to the improved 

 drainage of the soil, and the consequent improved 

 climate of large districts of this country. And may 

 we not hope that consumption, that saddest of all 

 messengers of death, may deal less destructively with 

 us, when we have used all the means placed within our 

 reach for lessening the amount of moisture, which, in the 

 shape of mists and fogs, hangs almost continually over 

 many beautiful valleys of our land. At least let us pray 

 that God will so be pleased to bless the attempts which 

 are being made to ameliorate the climate and the soil. 

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