Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health

by George E. Waring

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 matters which it contains, then to descend through a well-drained subsoil, to a free outlet.

From whatever source the water comes, it cannot remain stagnant in any soil without permanent injury to its fertility.

The Objection to too much Water in the Soil will be understood from the following explanation of the process of germination, (sprouting,) and growth. Other grave reasons why it is injurious will be treated in their proper order.

The first growth of the embryo plant, (in the seed,) is merely a change of form and position of the material which the seed itself contains. It requires none of the elements of the soil, and would, under the same conditions, take place as well in moist saw-dust as in the richest mold. The conditions required are, the exclusion of light; a certain degree of heat; and the presence of atmospheric air, and moisture. Any material which, without entirely excluding the air, will shade the seed from the light, yield the necessary amount of moisture, and allow the accumulation of the requisite heat, will favor the chemical[pg 012] changes which, under these circumstances, take place in the living seed. In proportion as the heat is reduced by the chilling effect of evaporation, and as atmospheric air is excluded, will the germination of the seed be retarded; and, in case of complete saturation for a long time, absolute decay will ensue, and the germ will die.

The accompanying illustrations, (Figures 1, 2 and 3,) from the "Minutes of Information" on Drainage, submitted by the General Board of Health to the British Parliament in 1852, represent the different conditions of the soil as to moisture, and the effect of these conditions on the germination of seeds. The figures are thus explained by Dr. Madden, from whose lecture they are taken:

"Soil, examined mechanically, is found to consist entirely of particles of all shapes and sizes, from stones and pebbles down to the finest powder; and, on account of their extreme irregularity of shape, they cannot lie so close to one another as to prevent there being passages between them, owing to which circumstance soil in the mass is always more or less porous. If, however, we proceed to examine one of the smallest particles of which soil is made up, we shall find that even this is not always solid, but is much more frequently porous, like soil in the mass. A considerable proportion of this finely-divided part of soil, the impalpable matter, as it is generally called, is found, by the aid of the microscope, to consist of broken down vegetable tissue, so that when a small portion of the finest dust from a garden or field is placed under the microscope, we have exhibited to us particles of every variety of shape and structure, of which a certain part is evidently of vegetable origin.

Fig. 1 - A DRY SOIL.

"In these figures I have given a very rude representation of these particles; and I must beg you particularly to remember that they are not meant to represent by any means accurately what the microscope exhibits, but are[pg 013] only designed to serve as a plan by which to illustrate the mechanical properties of the soil. On referring to Fig. 1, we perceive that there are two distinct classes of pores,—first, the large ones, which exist between the particles of soil, and second, the very minute ones, which occur in the particles themselves; and you will at the same time notice that, whereas all the larger pores,—those between the particles of soil,—communicate most freely with each other, so that they form canals, the small pores, however freely they may communicate with one another in the interior of the particle in which they occur, have no direct connection with the pores of the surrounding particles. Let us now, therefore, trace the effect of this arrangement. In Fig. 1 we perceive that these canals and pores are all empty, the soil being perfectly dry; and the canals communicating freely at the surface with the surrounding atmosphere, the whole will of course be filled with air. If in this condition a seed be placed in the soil, at a, you at once perceive that it is freely supplied with air, but there is no moisture; therefore, when soil is perfectly dry, a seed cannot grow.