Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health

Land which requires draining hangs out a sign of its condition, more or less clear, according to its circumstances, but always unmistakable to the practiced eye. Sometimes it is the broad banner of standing water, or dark, wet streaks in plowed land, when all should be dry and of even color; sometimes only a fluttering rag of distress in curling corn, or wide-cracking clay, or feeble, spindling, shivering grain, which has survived a precarious winter, on the ice-stilts that have stretched its crown above a wet soil; sometimes the quarantine flag of rank growth and dank miasmatic fogs.

To recognize these indications is the first office of the drainer; the second, to remove the causes from which they arise.

If a rule could be adopted which would cover the varied circumstances of different soils, it would be somewhat as follows: All lands, of whatever texture or kind, in which the spaces between the particles of soil are filled with water, (whether from rain or from springs,) within less than four feet of the surface of the ground, except during and immediately after heavy rains, require draining.

Of course, the particles of the soil cannot be made dry, nor should they be; but, although they should be moist themselves, they should be surrounded with air, not with water. To illustrate this: suppose that water be poured into a barrel filled with chips of wood until it runs over at the top. The spaces between the chips will be filled with water, and the chips themselves will absorb enough to become thoroughly wet;--this represents the worst condition of a wet soil. If an opening be made at the bottom of the barrel, the water which fills the spaces between the chips will be drawn off, and its place will be taken by air, while the chips themselves will remain wet from the water which they hold by absorption. A drain at the bottom of a wet field draws away the water from the free spaces between its particles, and its place is taken by air, while the particles hold, by attraction, the moisture necessary to a healthy condition of the soil.

There are vast areas of land in this country which do not need draining. The whole range of sands, gravels, light loams and moulds allow water to pass freely through them, and are sufficiently drained by nature, provided, they are as open at the bottom as throughout the mass. A sieve filled with gravel will drain perfectly; a basin filled with the same gravel will not drain at all. More than this, a sieve filled with the stiffest clay, if not "puddled,"(1) will drain completely, and so will heavy clay soils on porous and well drained subsoils. Money expended in draining such lands as do not require the operation is, of course, wasted; and when there is doubt as to the requirement, tests should be made before the outlay for so costly work is encountered.

There is, on the other hand, much land which only by thorough-draining can be rendered profitable for cultivation, or healthful for residence, and very much more, described as "ordinarily dry land," which draining would greatly improve in both productive value and salubrity.

The Surface Indications of the necessity for draining are various. Those of actual swamps need no description; those of land in cultivation are more or less evident at different seasons, and require more or less care in their examination, according to the circumstances under which they are manifested.

If a plowed field show, over a part or the whole of its surface, a constant appearance of dampness, indicating that, as fast as water is dried out from its upper parts, more is forced up from below, so that after a rain it is much longer than other lands in assuming the light color of dry earth, it unmistakably needs draining.

A pit, sunk to the depth of three or four feet in the earth, may collect water at its bottom, shortly after a rain;--this is a sure sign of the need of draining.

All tests of the condition of land as to water,--such as trial pits, etc.,--should be made, when practicable, during the wet spring weather, or at a time when the springs and brooks are running full. If there be much water in the soil, even at such times, it needs draining.

If the water of heavy rains stands for some time on the surface, or if water collects in the furrow while plowing, draining is necessary to bring the land to its full fertility.

Other indications may be observed in dry weather;--wide cracks in the soil are caused by the drying of clays, which, by previous soaking, have been pasted together; the curling of corn often indicates that in its early growth it has been prevented, by a wet subsoil, from sending down its roots below the reach of the sun's heat, where it would find, even in the dryest weather, sufficient moisture for a healthy growth; any severe effect of drought, except on poor sands and gravels, may be presumed to result from the same cause; and a certain wiryness of grass, together with a mossy or mouldy appearance of the ground, also indicate excessive moisture during some period of growth. The effects of drought are, of course, sometimes manifested on soils which do not require draining,--such as those poor gravels, which, from sheer poverty, do not enable plants to form vigorous and penetrating roots; but any soil of ordinary richness, which contains a fair amount of clay, will withstand even a severe drought, without great injury to its crop, if it is thoroughly drained, and is kept loose at its surface.

Poor crops are, when the cultivation of the soil is reasonably good, caused either by inherent poverty of the land, or by too great moisture during the season of early growth. Which of these causes has operated in a particular case may be easily known. Manure will correct the difficulty in the former case, but in the latter there is no real remedy short of such a system of drainage as will thoroughly relieve the soil of its surplus water.

The Sources of the Water in the soil are various. Either it falls directly upon the land as rain; rises into it from underlying springs; or reaches it through, or over, adjacent land.

The rain water belongs to the field on which it falls, and it would be an advantage if it could all be made to pass down through the first three or four feet of the soil, and be removed from below. Every drop of it is freighted with fertilizing matters washed out from the air, and in its descent through the ground, these are given up for the use of plants; and it performs other important work among the vegetable and mineral parts of the soil.

The spring water does not belong to the field,--not a drop of it,--and it ought not to be allowed to show itself within the reach of the roots of ordinary plants. It has fallen on other land, and, presumably, has there done its appointed work, and ought not to be allowed to convert our soil into a mere outlet passage for its removal.

The ooze water,--that which soaks out from adjoining land,--is subject to all the objections which hold against spring water, and should be rigidly excluded.

But the surface water which comes over the surface of higher ground in the vicinity, should be allowed every opportunity, which is consistent with good husbandry, to work its slow course over our soil,--not to run in such streams as will cut away the surface, nor in such quantities as to make the ground inconveniently wet, but to spread itself in beneficent irrigation, and to deposit the fertilizing matters which it contains, then to descend through a well-drained subsoil, to a free outlet.

From whatever source the water comes, it cannot remain stagnant in any soil without permanent injury to its fertility.

The Objection to too much Water in the Soil will be understood from the following explanation of the process of germination, (sprouting,) and growth. Other grave reasons why it is injurious will be treated in their proper order.

The first growth of the embryo plant, (in the seed,) is merely a change of form and position of the material which the seed itself contains. It requires none of the elements of the soil, and would, under the same conditions, take place as well in moist saw-dust as in the richest mold. The conditions required are, the exclusion of light; a certain degree of heat; and the presence of atmospheric air, and moisture. Any material which, without entirely excluding the air, will shade the seed from the light, yield the necessary amount of moisture, and allow the accumulation of the requisite heat, will favor the chemical changes which, under these circumstances, take place in the living seed. In proportion as the heat is reduced by the chilling effect of evaporation, and as atmospheric air is excluded, will the germination of the seed be retarded; and, in case of complete saturation for a long time, absolute decay will ensue, and the germ will die.

The accompanying illustrations, (Figures 1, 2 and 3,) from the "Minutes of Information" on Drainage, submitted by the General Board of Health to the British Parliament in 1852, represent the different conditions of the soil as to moisture, and the effect of these conditions on the germination of seeds. The figures are thus explained by Dr. Madden, from whose lecture they are taken:

"Soil, examined mechanically, is found to consist entirely of particles of all shapes and sizes, from stones and pebbles down to the finest powder; and, on account of their extreme irregularity of shape, they cannot lie so close to one another as to prevent there being passages between them, owing to which circumstance soil in the mass is always more or less porous. If, however, we proceed to examine one of the smallest particles of which soil is made up, we shall find that even this is not always solid, but is much more frequently porous, like soil in the mass. A considerable proportion of this finely-divided part of soil, the impalpable matter, as it is generally called, is found, by the aid of the microscope, to consist of broken down vegetable tissue, so that when a small portion of the finest dust from a garden or field is placed under the microscope, we have exhibited to us particles of every variety of shape and structure, of which a certain part is evidently of vegetable origin.