18 DRAINAGE. 



soil from the adjoining eighteen inches in width thrown 

 over it; the subsoil under it then broken up and manured, 

 the top soil from the third eighteen inches thrown upon it, 

 and so on seriatim, trench after trench, until the plot is 

 finished, returning the top soil taken from the first trench 

 to the last one. This may appear to involve a large amount 

 of labor and a great deal of expense, but it will be found 

 to well repay both in the excellent crops produced. 



After the land has been thus prepared, either by plowing 

 or by hand labor, it should be planted with potatoes, corn 

 or late cabbages the first season, as it can scarcely be 

 brought into sufficiently fine tilth for ordinary vegetables 

 the first year. 



If the subsoil should be heavy and retain water, it will 

 be necessary to uuder-drain it, the modes of doing which 

 we will now explain. _ _______ 



DRAINAGE. 



Drainage is necessary whenever the subsoil is of such a 

 character as to hold water. It is not only low-laying hind 

 that requires it, for often land laying on the lower declivity 

 of a hill-side will need it, because the water draining from 

 the upper part of the hill, will, when the subsoil does not 

 admit of its passing off freely, ooze out on the surface soil 

 below, and make it cold and wet. This coldness of the 

 soil is produced by the evaporation of the water through 

 the action of the sun's rays or the action of the wind. 

 This has been the subject of numerous experiments, the 

 results of which have shown that the evaporation of one 

 pound of water contained in one hundred pounds of earth, 

 already containing its proper quantity of moisture, lowered 

 its temperature ten degrees, and that the difference in 

 temperature of the same land, drained and undrained, 



