272 THE FARM. 



percolate through the soil iuto drains, so the season is not only earlier in 

 the spring bitt correspondingly prolonged in the fall, enabUng one team to 

 accomplish during the season much more -work. Every farmer knows what 

 a rush and huri-y there is, when ground is undrained, to push things when 

 soil is tempered just right for -work. Well drained land is always tempered 

 right. Steady work, which accomplishes the most, and not hurry, becomes 

 the order of the day, while there is always time to do everything well. 



9. Another object of draining is to deepen the soil. Where the water 

 line has been six inches from the surface, that is the depth of the man's farm 

 for all practical purposes. Neither cereals nor root crops will go down below 

 the water line. Trees do badly. Apples, pears and quinces blight when the 

 top roots go below the water lino. Lowering the water line twelve inches 

 gives the tiller of the soil a new farm more valuable than the firat. The 

 potash, soda, phosphoric acid and lime of the first six inches has sunk down 

 into the strata below. As these substances, so necessary to the growth of 

 plants, sink down into the earth when wet, so they rise in the fonu of niti'ate 

 when the ground is dry. So that underdraining gives the farmer control 

 by clovering and root cropping, of more valuable elements and greater 

 quantities of them, than ho can afford to buy. 



10. The last object of draining we will mention is, to render the farm and 

 neighborhood more healthy. This is no unimportant consideration. We 

 know of districts of country many miles square which twelve years ago were 

 greatly subject to chills and fevers, but which, by only partially draining and 

 liming, have become almost entirely free from these maladies. It is just 

 what any thinldng person would suppose. Where the laud is low and the 

 ■water lies either on the siirfaco or within an inch or two of it, the surface 

 vegetation is decomposed by the action of the moisture as soon as the warm 

 rays of the sun fall upon it. Malarial marsh gas is eliminated; bilious and 

 intermittent fever, stomach and bowel afflictions, that carry off numbers of 

 children, follow as a natural and necessary consequence. Where there is 

 only a small pond hole, that dries up in summer, near the house, doctors 

 are sure to be in demand. We hardly know where to stop writing on this 

 important subject. Many other reasons for draining will readily suggest 

 themselves, and farmers should study the various methods of draining wet 

 laud. 



How to Cure Hams. — This receipt is fifty years old, and it is the best. 

 To each twenty pounds of fresh meat make a mixture of one-fourth of a 

 pound of brown sugar and a dessertspoonful of ground saltpetre; rub this 

 well by hand into the meat; then with coarse salt cover the bottom of a bai-- 

 rel, say to half an inch; put in hams, and cover with half an inch of salt, and 

 so on until the barrel is full; hams should remain in a cool place four weeks; 

 when salted, Avipe and dry them, and get some whole black pepper, which 

 you must grind yourself, and pepper thoroiighly, especially about the hock 

 and bone; let the ham lie for two days; then smoke for eight weeks. 



Axle-Greiise. — A first-rate axle-greaso is made as follows: Dissolve half 

 a pound of common soda in one gallon of water; add three pounds of tallow 

 and six pounds of palm oil, or ten pounds of palm oil only. Heat them to- 

 gether to 200 or 210 degrees Fahr.; mix, and keep the mixture constantly 

 stirred until the composition is cooled down to 60 or 70 degrees. A thinner 

 composition is made with half a pound of soda, one gallon of water, one gal- 

 lon of I ape oil, and a quarter of a pound of tallow, or palm oil, 



