UNDERDRAINING CLAY SOILS. 
179 
theory. You all find it thus, and you will to the 
end of time. Eleven fowls are worth $2.75, 
which we add to $50, making $52.75, the cost 
of the ninetjr-nine remaining fowls. I have reck¬ 
oned one bushel per head as originally counting, 
making no abatement for mortality. 
The next point is, the worth of the time in 
feeding and attending to them, breakage of eggs, 
and interest on the investment. It is truly said 
that “ time is money.” Hence let no one say, 
“ O, it costs nothing, we do it in the family, when 
we should not be doing anything else.” For 
this part, $10 is little enough. We now have 
$12.25 as the profit on one hundred and ten 
fowls. This is small; but the large “ egg ” and 
“ chicken ” stories are not to be taken as a safe 
criterion to go by. 
I have allowed nothing for chickens. I do not 
let my hens sit at all in the above account, but 
test their laying powers only. We’ll see about 
the chicks next time. It is true, those ten cocks 
were of no use at all, but who would dare 
keep one hundred hens for profit, without them % 
I will relate my experience in keeping fowls 
without the males, by-and-by. 
Now, the great profits in keeping poultry are 
not what they are “ cracked up to be.” I have 
had enough of it to last a while. As to keeping 
a very large number of fowls by one person in 
one enclosure, it is a precarious business. No 
man should ever think of making a living by it, 
unless he owns a farm, and that farm is situated 
where the expense of getting his produce to 
market is considerable; but enough for the 
present. A fortune can be made on poultry, 
but not as managed now-a-days. 
T. B. Miner. 
Clinton , Oneida Co ., N. Y.- 
UNDERDRAINING- CLAY SOILS AND SUCH OTHERS 
AS ARE NATURALLY MOIST, OR RETENTIVE OF 
WATER. 
We believe no journal in the country has 
more frequently nor earnestly advocated the 
thorough underdraining of all such lands as re¬ 
quire it, than our own. Every additional fact 
coming under our notice serves to confirm us, 
not only in the importance, but in the absolute 
necessity of the adoption of this system to ren¬ 
der the cultivation of such lands profitable. 
We have, for instance, a piece of land, that, 
owing to the excess of moisture, held in the soil, 
is not in condition to be broken up, till quite 
too late for planting or sowing; and when sub¬ 
jected to. the plow, is turned up in such pon¬ 
derous clods, as to be almost wholly unfit for the 
purpose of cultivation. These lumps require 
weeks, and sometimes months of exposure to the 
atmosphere, before they crumble down into fine 
soil, capable of admitting the roots of plants 
and ministering fully to their support. Every 
rain that falls, instead of percolating rapidly 
through the soil to the underdrains, thus im¬ 
parting to it the warmth and vegetable food 
contained in the rain water, and then hurryin, 
away to permit the genial air to follow an 
yield up its warmth and food for the same be¬ 
neficent purpose, is held by the tenacious earth 
to the great injury, or almost total destruction 
of the crop. The result to the occupant is, hard 
work and meagre returns—investment of capital, 
seed, and labor, and no adequate remuneration. 
When, however, this land is once thoroughly 
underdrained, the change is as striking as if one 
had moved into another latitude, or into a for¬ 
eign and more favored country. The water, 
before perpetually resting in the soil, and 
brought to it in such quantities, by our abun¬ 
dant rains, is silently, though surely and rapid¬ 
ly drawn away, leaving the soil dry, mellow, 
and warm, and ready to receive the plow and 
the seed at the earliest return of spring. Its 
fine condition gives instant and vigorous.growth 
to the plants, and every successive rain, no mat¬ 
ter how profuse or frequent, adds to their sup¬ 
ply of food, and the means for their develop¬ 
ment and progress towards maturity. The wa¬ 
ter does not now remain and stagnate on the 
surface, nor form a mortar bed for a foot below 
it. It sinks immediately through every suc¬ 
cessive layer of roots, and, after yielding all the 
nutriment it is capable of affording to them and 
to the soil, the now superfluous and even detri¬ 
mental water is filtered into the drains, and 
passes away from the field. 
And when these profuse rains are succeeded 
by long and parching drouths, as they not un- 
frequently are, the drained land is not the less 
prepared to resist their deleterious effects. The 
depth of soil greatly increased, from thorough 
drainage, facilitates the upwelling moisture from 
remote depths below the surface, which impart 
their nourishment to the roots as they ascend. 
This moisture, too, is frequently saturated with 
some one or more of the mineral salts, as lime, 
plaster, potash, soda, and the like, which adds 
to the food of the crop, and imparts a perma¬ 
nent fertility to the soil. And still more advan¬ 
tageous is the fine pulverisation of the earth 
which the elements effect in the soil, where thorough 
drainage has been allowed to do its perfect 
work. The earth will be found to have become 
porous, loose, and friable. There is a telegraphic 
communication established, not only between 
the surface and the remotest depths of the soil, 
but even between the air above, and the air be¬ 
low it, which circulates through the drains. 
This is literally true, for the soil is now in con¬ 
dition to permit, and even invite and favor those 
electrical operations and changes in the soil, 
which stimulate the plants and hasten and aug¬ 
ment their- development. Each of the under¬ 
drains are tunnels, through which the air is 
constantly passing; and at no period of the 
year is the atmosphere so loaded with moisture, 
as during midsummer, when drouths most fre¬ 
quently prevail. It is thus capable of yielding 
the largest quantity to the soil, in its passage 
through it, a result which is found to follow, 
wherever deep draining and subsoil plowing 
are practised. When surrounding, undrained, 
shallow-plowed fields are parched with drouth, 
such adjoining ones as have been properly 
treated, are found almost saturated with a whole¬ 
some moisture; and th e crops upon them, un¬ 
der the double advantages of heat, and sufficient 
