CHAPTER VIII. 



PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE. 



T7XCESSIVE moisture will often prevent the immediate cultivation of 

 -Lrf our ideal strawberry land. Its absence is fatal, its excess equally so. 

 Let me suggest some of the evil effects. Every one is aware that climate 

 that is, the average temperature of the atmosphere throughout the year 

 has a most important influence on vegetation. But a great many, I 

 imagine, do not realize that there is an underground climate also, and that 

 it is scarcely less important that this should be adapted to the roots than 

 that the air should be tempered to the foliage. Water-logged land is cold. 

 The sun can bake, but not warm it to any extent. Careful English 

 experiments have proved that well-drained land is from 10 to 20 

 warmer than wet soils ; and Mr. Parkes has shown, in his " Essay on 

 the Philosophy of Drainage," that in " draining the ' Red Moss ' the 

 thermometer in the drained land rose in June to 66 at seven inches below 

 the surface, while in the neighboring water-logged land it would never 

 rise above 47, an enormous gain." 



In his prize essay on drainage, Dr. Madden confirms the above, and 

 explains further, as follows : " An excess of water injures the soil by 

 diminishing its temperature in summer and increasing it in winter a 

 transformation of nature most hurtful to perennials, because the vigor of a 

 plant in spring depends greatly on the lowness of temperature to which it 

 has been subjected during the winter (within certain limits, of course), as. 

 the difference of temperature between winter and spring is the exciting 



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