Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1868 — Thorough Draining and Deep Tillage. [ARTICLE]

Thorough Draining and Deep Tillage.

We had a wet spring, nt least in some parts of the country, though it was dry enough in pthere. It is strange that wet seasons set the people think ing and working at uuderdrainjng—;while dry ones do not. Yet this very year wherever drouth hasp>aiched the soilnnd hart the crops, well drained land has come ont comparatively well.—Thorough draining means deep tillage, for no wise man put? from SSO to SBO expenses on an acre—unless it be on W graded lawn—and then leave it with only surface culture. The plow is followed Ify the sub-soiier, and the yellow dirt sees the light lirfle by little, year by year, until a rich crumbly soil a foot deep roils ap in mellow waves, behind the great plows,—never wet never dry, always moist, never cold, early in spring, late in autumn, inviting culture and well rewarding it. We are too apt to look at droughts as dispensations of Providence which we roust take without repining, and - cannot ward off. A few years ago the old fogies held that the reclaiming of swamps aud bogs was flying in the face of Providence, as if they had not been created for some wise purpose. So indeed they were—on purpose to be drained, and so if you please droughts are sent on purpose to test our good husbandry in avoiding the harm they might do us, and profiting by the good. The flow of water during droughts being-upward by absorption aud evaporation, fertilizing matters are brought up to the surface which in ordinary seasons are washed down; hence the years succeeding dry ones are always years of plenty. (ft Btainage is usually best done in autumn; its principles are simple and when understood success is certain. We have often diseased the subject,and there are excellent treatises upon it, of which none is better than «OtL Warring's Draining for JfWfit, which gives the best way 4w everything under the jeppoaition that; if it is’either necessary or desirable to slight the #ork or orfly half do it, ,«athods enough will suggest themselves to almost anybody. shock! take the most direct course down bill:' The tiles should be too small rather than too largo- For if small

the shifter current will keep deposits flora forming which would fill np , large tiles. Wherever the line ot descent is changed to a less fell per ! foot, a stilt-basin should be ’placed. A very gradual fall ! is all that is needed if it be regular. The bottom of the drain is the most important part to ; have exactly right; hence too ! much pains can hardly be taken jto have the fiual grading perfect, and the tiles well laid. Collars for the tiles are of great | advantage. The value ot the 'drain is determined by the expedience of the poorest tile and the worst laid one its entire length; as the strength of a; chain is rnfeasured by that of j the weakest link. Drains must receive their water from the i bottom, not from the top, hence, pack clay or stiff soil upon the tile and make this layer, sixteen inches above the tile im- j pervious to water. Deep drains farther apart are more ccomomical in the long ruu than shallow ones near together—four jfeet being the depth usually advised and seldom reachled. Tries are often cheaper than stones, even if the latter encumber the land. —American Agriculturist.