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time it was a lake of water—now it is sound cultivatable ground. The 
spirited proprietor, L. J. Farwell, has intersected it with open ditches, 
into which the superfluous waters drain; and although those ditches re¬ 
main filled with the water, the object of drainage is accomplished—and 
now by a little more expense they too can be emptied. 
As a proprietor of land, and as a tenant farmer, I never hesitated to 
drain; and I have done so without any lease of land, although I would 
not recommend the practice—for ten to one, but your rent is advanced 
upon you for the improvement. 
Draining lias had for its advocates the intelligent of the present age, 
as well as of the last half century. I should have been glad to have 
given you the names of men who have done some service in their day 
and generation, but without my books I cannot. The late Mr. Smith, of 
Decatur, wrote elaborately on this subject, and of his own experience 
recommended deep draining; and the wisdom of his suggestions and the 
proof of his increased crops were so apparent as to make the practice 
common with all who had the means, and whose lands were unentailed; 
and so enthusiastic were some, that a gentleman I knew well, whose land 
was wet, and who was so pleased with the novelty of the thing, that 
doing, as he did all things to an extreme, he put in his drains so deep 
that the springs of water that supplied his farm houses were all drained 
off! 
Another system of drainage has obtained some repute, called furrow 
draining. Many of the fields of England, as I before remarked, were 
cast up into ridges, which gave an uneven surface to the land, and I 
stated why this was done; in these furrows, or bottoms of ridges, drains 
have been laid to the depth of the plow-share, and from this much cheaper 
practice great gain has been made in the increase of crops, and no doubt 
it is an excellent system ; but in my opinion much less effective and less 
permanent than deep drainage. It is true that the drains thus made, being 
about a foot in depth, carry off the surface water, and at such a depth the 
roots of grains or grasses do not penetrate; but it will be obvious that such 
draining will only suit lands having an easy descent, and is inapplicable to 
a wet and boggy country ; besides being liable to be disturbed or broken 
in by the workings of the plow-share. Roads as well as lands should all 
be drained ; there is no necessity for any man to get up to the neck with 
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