ssive
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