The above is no fancy sketch. Every farmer who cultivates a retentive soil
will confess, that all of these inconveniences conspire, in the same
season, to lessen his returns, with very damaging frequency; and nothing
is more common than for him to qualify his calculations with the proviso,
"if I have a good season." He prepares his ground, plants his seed,
cultivates the crop, "does his best,"--thinks he does his best, that
is,--and trusts to Providence to send him good weather. Such farming is
attended with too much uncertainty,--with too much _luck_,--to be
satisfactory; yet, so long as the soil remains in its undrained condition,
the element of luck will continue to play a very important part in its
cultivation, and bad luck will often play sad havoc with the year's
accounts.
Land of this character is usually kept in grass, as long as it will bring
paying crops, and is, not unfrequently, only available for pasture; but,
both for hay and for pasture, it is still subject to the drawback of the
uncertainty of the seasons, and in the best seasons it produces far less
than it might if well drained.
The effect of this condition of the soil on the health of animals living
on it, and on the health of persons living near it, is extremely
unfavorable; the discussion of this branch of the question, however, is
postponed to a later chapter.
Thus far, there have been considered only the _effects_ of the undue
moisture in the soil. The manner in which these effects are produced will
be examined, in connection with the manner in which draining overcomes
them,--reducing to the lowest possible proportion, that uncertainty which
always attaches to human enterprises, and which is falsely supposed to
belong especially to the cultivation of the soil.
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