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 exce