Vol. LXVIII No. 4006. 
NEW YORK, AUGUST 7, 1909. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR. 
the warmer the soil, up to 90 to 100 degrees. All 
the forces which make plant food available are 
more active in a warm soil than in a cold one. It is 
said that nitrification is ten times more rapid at 99 
degrees than at 57 degrees. Chemical activities are 
much more intense at high temperatures than at low. 
And the solvent power of water is greater the higher 
the temperature. We can thus appreciate the ad¬ 
vantages of a warm soil. Evaporation is a cooling 
process. Covering the bulb of a thermometer with 
a close-fitting layer of wet muslin will often cause 
the mercury to drop 20 degrees, showing the cool¬ 
ing due to evaporation. The most intense degrees 
of cold known are obtained by the evaporation of 
volatile substances. Gisborne says: “The evapora¬ 
tion of one pound of water will lower , the tempera¬ 
ture of too pounds of soil 10 degrees. That is to 
say, that if to 100 pounds of soil, holding all the 
water it can by attraction (capillary water), but con¬ 
taining no water of drainage, be added one pound of 
water which it has no means of discharging, ex¬ 
cept by evaporation, it will, by the time it has so dis- 
THE PROBLEMS OF THE CHEAP LANDS. 
Drainage and Its Effect Upon Soil. 
Part II. 
Of course, not all cheap lands need draining, and 
it would be foolish to spend time and money in 
draining those that have loose, open subsoils. On 
the other hand, all will admit the necessity of drain¬ 
ing those low-lying lands, in which the water table 
stands close to the surface. But there is a class of 
soils between these retentive upland clays, in which 
the necessity of drainage is not so apparent. They 
may be so rolling that no water ever stands on them, 
but if they are of such a nature that water stands 
in them, drainage is the first essential in their re¬ 
clamation. Such soils are always dense and im¬ 
pervious. 
Many years ago, when the writer was a boy, he 
had occasion to sift some sand that was so wet it 
could not readily be sifted in the ordinary way. 
We procured a tub, filled it half full of water and 
very easily sifted the sand in water. I distinctly 
remember how surprised 
I was to find how firmly 
it compacted itself in 
the bottom of the tub. 
I could not thrust my 
hand into it. It was 
hard to force a shovel 
into it. Yet the pile of 
unsifted sand that the 
water could percolate 
through did not become 
dense and hard. You 
could wet it as much as 
you pleased, and I could 
easily thrust my arm 
into it up to the elbow. 
Do you catch the point? 
In the tub the water 
floated the particles of 
sand together, so that 
they settled very closely 
and compactly, while in 
the pile of sand, where 
the water did not stand, 
but could percolate 
through, the sand grains 
were not changed in 
their relative position. 
Now apply this to the 
soil. In a soil that 
stands full of water, even for a short time .in the charged it, be 10 degrees colder than it would have 
bpiing, the soil grains have a tendency to float to- been if it had had the power to discharge this one 
& ethei.. Such a soil becomes very compact, and pound by filtration.” Our crops require vast amounts 
when it dries is hard and impervious to the air and of heat and energy. There is more to waste in the 
‘o the roots of plants. evaporation of surplus water. Everybody knows 
drainage will loosen such a soil. Some of you how a warm rain in the Spring warms the soil. This 
who read this have had this experience. Years ago is much more efficacious in a drained soil. I have 
><>u ( ' ia ' ne d a swale,’ putting a single line of tile frequently gone to the outlets of my tile drains with 
underneath the lozvest place. But after a few years a thermometer when it was raining and the drains 
you found that the tile were no longer under the flowing, and in the Spring found the water dis- 
vmest place, but under a ridge; the ground was charged from the drains from 20 degrees to 26 
actually lower on either side of the line of tile. The degrees colder than that which fell upon the field, 
dram, by admitting air, had loosened that soil and This shows to what an extent the soiL was ab- 
increased its bulk. You have seen basins where sorbing the heat from the rainwater, and giving 
Water for merly stood entirely disappear a few years up its cold to the drainage water. Under similar 
‘ ter draining; not because earth had been carried conditions in August and September. I have found 10 
into them, and filled them up, but because the air degrees difference in the temperature of the rain 
ac nil ff e d by the drains had “slaked” the soil and in- and drainage waters, showing that, even at this sea¬ 
son of the year, the drains were warming the soil. 
DRAINING AN OHIO FARM BY MACHINERY. Fig. 414. 
creased its bulk. 
* WARMS THE SOIL. —All the As a matter of fact, a well-drained soil has been 
P enomena of plant growth are dependent upon found to be from 12 degrees to 14 degrees warmer 
certain degrees of heat. Seeds do not germinate in throughout the season than a similar soil undrained, 
co u soil, and growth is nearly always more rapid This exerts a large influence on crop growth. 
DRAINAGE AERATES THE SOIL.—We are apt 
to think of drainage merely as a means of getting 
rid of the surplus water. But the more we study 
the problem the more we are inclined to consider 
the aeration of the soil which we secure of the 
greatest importance. King says: “Air in the soil 
in which crops are to be grown is as essential to the 
life of the crop as air in the stable is to the life of our 
animals.” This experiment is on record. A number 
of pots were filled with the same soil, and given 
exactly the same treatment, except that into half of 
them a small quantity of air was forced each day. 
The result was that the crops grown on the aerated 
pots were almost double that obtained from the 
others. It shows the value of getting the air into 
the soil. Oxygen seems to be the vital principle 
in nearly all of those chemical changes in the soil 
by which plant food is made available. It is neces¬ 
sary to the microscopic life that is so essential to a 
fertile soil. So essential is it to these micro-organ¬ 
isms, that “if it is not present in the soil—air or 
water—in sufficient quantities, they have the power 
to decompose nitrates 
and some organic com¬ 
pounds for the oxygen 
they contain, and thus 
liberate free nitrogen” 
(King). Oxygen is also 
necessary for the nitro¬ 
gen-fixing bacteria of the 
legumes. In short air in 
the soil is vital to all 
those processes—physi- 
sical, chemical and bio¬ 
logical—by which plant 
food is made available, 
and the only way to get 
it into the soil is by 
drainage. 
Now, drainage accom¬ 
plishes this in several 
ways. As the water per¬ 
colates through a drained 
soil, and lowers the wa¬ 
ter table, it does not cre¬ 
ate a vacuum. A vol¬ 
ume of air equal to the 
water is drawn into the 
soil. Again, when an¬ 
other rain falls and a 
sheet of water is formed 
on the surface of the 
field, it presses down upon the soil air, and has a 
tendency to force it out through the drains, and in set¬ 
tling draws another volume of air into the soil, so 
that every shower helps to change the air in a 
drained field. The drains themselves constitute ven¬ 
tilating flues by means of which air circulates 
through the soil more or less because of changes 
in temperature and barometric pressure. In a drained 
soil plant roots penetrate much deeper. Worms, ants 
and other insects burrow deeper. These worm holes 
and root channels permit a more perfect aeration 
and oxidation, until the whole body of the soil down 
as deep as it has been drained becomes a fit home and 
feeding ground for the roots of our plants. 
DRAINAGE AND SOIL MOISTURE.—We must 
yet consider the subject of drainage as it affects 
the water supply of our plants. This is a most im¬ 
portant phase of the question. Crop failures over 
wide areas are more often occasioned by a 
shortage of soil moisture than by any other one 
thing. It is said that a crop of corn that will pro¬ 
duce 60 bushels per acre must evaporate through its 
leaves 960 tons of water. This is in addition to the 
