AND GROUND SURFACES. 
41 
Drainage. 
The absolute necessity of deep sub-soil drainage is known to 
all intelligent agriculturists and gardeners ; but on the supposition 
that among our readers are town-bred people who have not had 
occasion to become well-informed in even the rudiments of horti¬ 
culture, we will state broadly, that deep and thorough sub-soil 
drainage is the most essential of all preparations for the growth of 
trees and shrubs ; without which neither care nor surface enrich¬ 
ment of the soil will develop their greatest beauty. Many valuable 
shrubs cannot survive the winters of the middle States in imper¬ 
fectly drained soils, which in those deeply drained and cultivated 
are hardy and healthy. In Chapter XVIII, on the philosophy of 
deep drainage and cultivation, and the treatment of half-hardy 
trees and shrubs, to which, in this connection, the reader’s atten¬ 
tion is earnestly invited, the results of drainage are more fully 
treated. The same causes which make the most thorough drain¬ 
age of the soil a //r-requisite to success in growing half-hardy 
trees, act with equal efficiency to give fuller health and greater vigor 
to those which are hardy. The white oak may continue to grow, 
in a slow and meagre way, in a soil filled during most of the year 
with superfluous moisture; but if that same soil were deeply and 
completely drained the annual growth would be doubled, and the 
increased abundance and finer color of the foliage becomes as 
marked as the difference between an uncultivated and a well-tilled 
field of corn. A lilac bush growing in a soil cold with constant 
moisture a little below the surface, will develop only surface roots ; 
and having no deep hold in the soil, its main stems will hang to one 
side or another with a sort of inebriate weakness. But if the soil 
is dry, deep, and porous, when the plant is set out, the roots strike 
down deep and strong, the stem will exhibit a sturdy vigor, and the 
top a well-balanced, low-spreading luxuriance, never seen in cold 
undrained soils. Even willows, much as they love a moist soil, are 
much more healthy and symmetrical when planted in well-drained 
than in wet places ;—their peculiarity being to flourish best where 
their roots can find water by seeking it, as an animal goes to a 
stream and stoops to drink, but not by standing in it perpetually. 
