The necessary summer cultivation, between the rows, has to be done as the weather permits; and much more of it is required because of the baking of the ground. The whole life of the farmer, in fact, becomes a constant struggle with nature, and he fights always at a disadvantage. What he does by the work of days, is mainly undone by a single night's storm. Weeds grow apace, and the land is too wet to admit of their being exterminated. By the time that it is dry enough, other pressing work[pg 172] occupies the time; and if, finally, a day comes when they may be attacked, they offer ten times the resistance that they would have done a week earlier. The operations of the farm are carried on more expensively than if the ability to work constantly allowed a smaller force to be employed. The crops which give such doubtful promise, require the same cultivation as though they were certain to be remunerative, and the work can be done only with increased labor, because of the bad condition of the soil.
From force of tradition and of habit, the farmer accepts his fate and plods through his hard life, piously ascribing to the especial interference of an inscrutable Providence, the trials which come of his own neglect to use the means of relief which Providence has placed within his reach.
Trouble enough he must have, at any rate, but not necessarily all that he now has. It is not within the scope of the best laid drains to control storm or sunshine,—but it is within their power to remove the water of the storm, rapidly and sufficiently, and to allow the heat of the sunshine to penetrate the soil and do its hidden work. No human improvement can change any of the so-called "phenomena" of nature, or prevent the action of the least of her laws; but their effects upon the soil and its crops may be greatly modified, and that which, under certain circumstances, would have caused inconvenience or loss, may, by a change of circumstances, be made positively beneficial.
In the practice of agriculture, which is pre-eminently an economic art, draining will be prosecuted because of the pecuniary profit which it promises, and,—very properly,—it will not be pursued, to any considerable extent, where the money, which it costs, will not bring money in return. Yet, in a larger view of the case, its collateral advantages are of even greater moment than its mere profits. It is the foundation and the commencement of the most intelligent farming. It opens the way for other[pg 173] improvements, which, without it, would produce only doubtful or temporary benefits; and it enables the farmer so to extend and enlarge his operations, with fair promise of success, as to raise his occupation from a mere waiting upon the uncertain favors of nature, to an intelligent handling of her forces, for the attainment of almost certain results.
The rude work of an unthinking farmer, who scratches the surface soil with his plow, plants his seed, and trusts to the chances of a greater or less return, is unmitigated drudgery,—unworthy of an intelligent man; but he who investigates all of the causes of success and failure in farming, and adapts every operation to the requirements of the circumstances under which he works; doing everything in his power that may tend to the production of the results which he desires, and, so far as possible, avoiding everything that may interfere with his success,—leaving nothing to chance that can be secured, and securing all that chance may offer,—is engaged in the most ennobling, the most intelligent and the most progressive of all industrial avocations.
In the cultivation of retentive soils, drainage is the key to all improvement, and its advantage is to be measured not simply by the effect which it directly produces in increasing production, but, in still greater degree, by the extent to which it prepares the way for the successful application of improved processes, makes the farmer independent of weather and season, and offers freer scope to intelligence in the direction of his affairs.
CHAPTER VIII. - HOW TO MAKE DRAINING TILES.
Draining tiles are made of burnt clay, like bricks and earthen-ware.