onds and streams for the purpose. Our
domestic animals live on land, and we do not put them into fish-ponds to
pasture. There are useful plants which thrive best in water. Such is the
cranberry, notwithstanding all that has been said of its cultivation on
upland. And there are domestic fowls, such as ducks and geese, that
require pools of water; but we do not hence infer that our hens and
chickens would be better for daily immersion. All lands, then, require
drainage, that contain too much water, at any season _for the intended
crops_.

This will be found to be an important element in our rule. Land may
require drainage for Indian corn, that may not require it for grass.
Most of the cultivated grasses are improved in quality, and not lessened
in quantity, by the removal of stagnant water in Summer; but there are
reasons for drainage for hoed crops, which do not apply to our mowing
fields. In New England, we have for a few weeks a perfect race with
Nature, to get our seeds into the ground before it is too late. Drained
land may be plowed and planted several weeks earlier than land
undrained, and this additional time for preparation is of great value to
the farmer. Much of this same land would be, by the first of June, by
the time the ordinary planting season is past, sufficiently drained by
Nature, and a grass crop upon it would be, perhaps, not at all
benefitted by thorough-drainage; so that it is often an important
consideration with reference to this operation, whether a given portion
of our farm may not be most profitably kept in permanent grass, and
maintained in fertility by top-dressing, or by occasional plowing and
reseeding in Autumn. It is certainly convenient to have all our fields
adapted to our usual rotation, and it is for each man to balance for
himself this convenience against the cost of drainage in each particular
case.

What particular crops are most injured by stagnant water in the soil,
or by the too tardy percolation of rain-water, may be determined by
observation. How stagnant water injures plants, is not, as has been
suggested, easily understood in all its relations. It doubtless retards
the decomposition of the substances which supply their nutriment, and it
reduces the temperature of the soil. It has been suggested, that it
prevents or checks perspiration and introsusception, and it excludes the
air which is essential to the vegetation of most plants. Whatever the
theory, the fact is acknowled