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CHAPTER XIII. 



HIGH FAEMING. 



AMONG the innovations in agriculture which the last 

 crisis produced, by far the most important that which 

 will remain as the most useful effect of that great disturb- 

 ance is the process of putting the land into good condi- 

 tion, known by the name of drainage. The draining away 

 of superabundant water, especially upon stiff soils, has 

 always been the chief difficulty in English agriculture. 

 Hitherto the means employed for getting rid of it were 

 imperfect. Now, however, the problem is completely 

 solved. " Take this flower -pot," said the President of a 

 meeting in France lately ; " what is the meaning of this 

 small hole at the bottom \ to renew the water. And 

 why to renew the water \ because it gives life or death : 

 life, when it is made only to pass through the bed of 

 earth, for it leaves with the soil its productive principles, 

 and renders soluble the nutritive properties destined to 

 nourish the plant ; death, on the other hand, when it re- 

 mains in the jpt, for it soon becomes putrid, and rots the 

 roots, and also prevents new water from penetrating." 

 The theory of drainage is exactly described in this figure. 

 The new invention consists in employing cylindrical 

 tiles of burnt clay to carry off the water, instead of open 

 ditches, or trenches filled with stones or faggots, me- 

 thods known even to the ancients. These tiles are several 



