Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1870 — Advantages of Under-Draining. [ARTICLE]

Advantages of Under-Draining.

The advantages of under-draining are epitomized as follows by the -Farmer's Magazine : 1. It prevents drought. 2. It furnishes an increased supply of atmospheric fertilizers. 3. It warms the lower portions of the soil. 4. It hastens the decomposition of roots and other organic matter. 5. It accelerates the disintegration of the mineral matters of the soil. 6 It causes a more even distribution of nutritious matters among the parts of the soil traversed by roots. 7. It improves the mechanical texture of the soil. 8. It causes the poisonous excrementitious matter of plants to be carried out of reach of their roots. 9. It prevents grasses from running out. 10. It enables us to deepen the surface soil, by removing excess of water. 11. It renders soil earlier in the spring. 12. It prevents the throwing out of grain in winter. 13. It allows us to work sooner after rain. 14. It keeps off the effects of cold weather longer in the fall. 15. It prevents the formation of acetic and other acids, which induce the growth of sorrel and similar weeds. 16. It hastens the decay of vegetable matter and the finer comminution of the earthy parts of the soil. 17. It prevents, in a great measure, the evaporation of water, and the consequent abstraction of heat from the soil. -18. It admits fresh quantities of water from rains, &c., which are always more or less imbued with the fertilizing gases of the atmosphere to be deposited among the absorbent parts of the soil, and given up to the necessities of plants. 19. It prevents the formation of so hard a crust on the surface of the soil as is usual on heavy lands. 20. It prevents, in a great measure, grass and winter grains from being winterkilled.