28 GARDENING FOR PROFIT. 



DRAINAGE. Every operator in the soil concedes the 

 importance of drainage, yet it is really astonishing to 

 observe how men will work wet lands, year after year, 

 wasting annually, by loss of crops, twice the amount re- 

 quired to thoroughly drain. A most industrious German, 

 in this vicinity, cultivated about eight acres for three 

 years, barely making a living his soil was an excellent 

 loam, but two-thirds of it was so " spongy " that he could 

 never get it plowed until all his neighbors had their crops 

 planted. Driving past one day I hailed him, asking him 

 why he was so late in getting in his crop, when he ex- 

 plained that if he had begun sooner his horses would 

 have "bogged" so he might never have got them out 

 again. I suggested draining, but he replied that would 

 never pay -on a leased place; he had started on a ten 

 years' lease, which had only seven years more to run, and 

 that he would only be improving it for his landlord, who 

 would allow him nothing for such improvement. After 

 some further conversation I asked him to jump into my 

 wagon, and in ten minutes we alighted at a market gar- 

 den that had, six years before, been just such a swamp 

 hole as his own, but now (the middle of May) was luxu- 

 riant with vegetation. I explained to him what its former 

 condition had been, and that the investing of $500 in 

 drain tiles would, in twelve months, put his in the same 

 condition. He, being a shrewd man, acted on the advice, 

 and at the termination of his lease purchased and paid 

 for his eight acres $12,000, the saving 01 six years on his 

 drained garden. This was in war times, when prices for 

 all products were double what they are now. I honestly 

 believe that had he gone on without draining he would 

 not have made $1,200 in twelve years, far less $12,000 in 

 six years. My friend attributes his whole success in life 

 to our accidental meeting and conversation that May 

 morning, and consequently I have no stauncher friend 

 on earth than he. 



