, it is mostly very fine. I observed a thin strip through
it, but did not notice that it was wet.'

'Well, it is not _very_ wet. Sometimes after a rain, the water
runs across it, and in spring and fall it is just wet enough to
heave the wheat and kill it.'

I inquired whether a couple of good drains across the lot would
not render it dry.

'Perhaps so--but there is not over an acre that is killed out.'

'Have you made an estimate of the loss you annually sustain from
this wet place?'

'No, I had not thought much about it.'

'Would $30 be too high?'

'O yes, double.'

'Well, let's see; it cost you $3 to turn over the sward? Two
bushels of seed, $2; harrowing in, 75 cents; interest, taxes, and
fences, $5.25; 25 bushels of wheat lost, $25.'

'Deduct for harvesting----'

'No; the straw would pay for that.'

'Very well, all footed $36.'

'What will the wheat and straw on this acre be worth this year?'

'Nothing, as I shall not cut the ground over.'

'Then it appears that you have lost, in what you have actually
expended, and the wheat you would have harvested, had the ground
been dry, $36, a pretty large sum for one acre.'

'Yes I see,' said the farmer."

While Rye may be grown, with tolerable advantage, on lands which are less
perfectly drained than is necessary for Wheat, there can be no doubt that
an increase of more than the six and two-thirds bushels needed to make up
the drainage charge will be the result of the improvement.

While Oats will thrive in soils which are too wet for many other crops,
the ability to plant early, which is secured by an early removal from the
soil of its surplus water, will ensure, one year with another, more than
twelve and a half bushels of increased product.

In the case of Potatoes, also, the early planting will be a great
advantage; and, while the cause of the potato-rot is not yet clearly
discovered, it is generally conceded that, even if it does not result
directly from too great wetness of the soil, its development is favored by
this condition, either from a direct action on the tubers, or from the
effect in the air immediately about the plants, of the exhalations of a
humid soil.

An increase of from five to ten per cent. on a very ordinary crop of
potatoes, will cover the drainage charge, and with facilities for
marketing, the higher price of the earlier yield is