522 [Assembly 



When tlie adjacent highlands will supply stone, or if tile be 

 used, then the ditches may be replaced by thorough draining, and 

 so secure the continuance of their effect without a repetition of 

 the mole plowing. In localities where timber of a proper kind 

 is cheap, the waste portions, such as saw mill slabs, etc., may be 

 used, and thus last for a long time. 



In localities where the topography of the country does not sup- 

 ply an outlet for the drains in the ordinary way, then sometimes 

 the digging of a single well in the lower portion during a dry 

 season may drain the meadow, and by carrying drains to this well 

 a large area may be restored. It must be remembered that most 

 inland muck and peat deposits are underlaid by a stratum of clay, 

 and if this is cut through a gravelly stratum is often met with, 

 capable of receiving and distributing immense quantities of water, 

 which finds outlets from springs, wells, etc. 



Wells which have but six feet of water, will often furnish 

 several thousand gallons per day without losing their usuul depth, 

 and if a corresponding quantity runs into, instead of being 

 removed from such a well, it distributes as fast as received, with- 

 out any material rise of water in the well. 



It should be remembered that these deposits occur by the wash- 

 ing down of the more fertile portions of highland soils, bringing 

 with them decaying vegetation and the soluble portions of adja- 

 cent inorganic matter, thus rendering them more replete w^ith the 

 requirements of plants than upland soils, and when freed from 

 excess of water, they often undergo chemical changes which fully 

 prepare them for use, without the assistance of auglit else but 

 the exercise of nature's laws, permitted by the removal of water 

 and the admission of air. Occasionally assistance of a chemical 

 kind is required 5 thus, when the deposit has been mainly supplied 

 from the woods, the quantity of tannic acid is too great to admit 

 of full fertility, and then the addition of lime to correct this 

 acidity and assist in the decomposition of woody fibre, may prove 

 necessary; and, indeed, in some cases small quantities of other 

 inorganic requirements which are plenty in upland soils may be 

 wanted, but analysis will always show what these are, and the 



