212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tial to the development of vegetable growth in the soil as it is 

 to our existence above the surface ; and therefore we can readily 

 understand how essential it is to render the depth of that which 

 our plants require for their perfect development, percolative or 

 permeable, free or active. This is not only required, because 

 the roots will not penetrate a bed of stagnant water, and will 

 prosper in a deeper feeding ground, but because there are in 

 soils organic and inorganic ingredients, which require alterations 

 only to be effected by the absorption of gases from the atmos- 

 phere. By drainage you not only afford to plants the deeper 

 bed to sustain them, at the rate of one hundred tons per acre 

 for every inch of depth gained, but you correct the influence of 

 injurious constituents of the soil ; and what is more, you carry 

 into the deepened bed those fertilizing ingredients which are 

 constantly associated with fresh air and moving water." 



He might have added, if any further proof were needed, that 

 trees and plants send their roots along the surface, only because 

 they have that antipathy to stagnant water ; that one of the 

 great precautions necessary in laying drains is to set them 

 sufficiently deep and close to keep out these same roots, which 

 never find the end of their journey downwards toward the 

 moving water in the drains. 



Believing, then, that all our farmers are familiar with the 

 advantages to be derived from draining ; that they are convinced 

 of the fallacy of the objection which so long maintained in this 

 country, that, though well enough for the moist clime of Eng- 

 land, thorough-draining would never do here, where our soils 

 are parched and baked in the hot drouths of summer ; and that 

 all have seen, either on their own land or tlieir neighbors, 

 the favorable effects of draining in this respect, we will briefly 

 refer to one or two points which seem to us of importance. 



Why are our farmers so slow to avail themselves of the advan- 

 tages to be derived from this mode of improvement ? The 

 answer would doubtless be, by nineteen out of twenty, " The 

 expense of the thing ; it is an outlay we can ill afford." Let us 

 endeavor to help them out of this difficulty. 



All the writers upon this subject give the most explicit direc- 

 tions for draining with tiles, and uniformly advise the employ- 

 ment of an engineer, and to have the tiles on the ground when 



