The capacity of the atmosphere to take up and convey water, furnishes one of the grandest illustrations of the perfect work of the Author of the Universe. "All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full;" and the sea is not full, because the numerous great rivers and their millions of tributaries, ever flowing from age to age, convey to the ocean only as much water as the atmosphere carries back in vapor, and discharges upon the hills. The warmer the atmosphere, the greater its capacity to hold moisture. The heated, thirsty air of the tropics drinks up the water of the ocean, and bears it away to the colder regions, where, through condensation by cold, it becomes visible as a cloud; and as a huge sponge pressed by an invisible hand, the cloud, condensed still further by cold, sends down its water to the earth in rain.
The heated air over our fields and streams, in Summer, is loaded with moisture as the sun declines. The earth has been cooled by radiation of its heat, and by constant evaporation through the day. By contact with the cooler soil, the air, borne by its thousand currents gently along its surface, is condensed, and yields its moisture to the thirsty earth again, in the form of dew.
At a Legislative Agricultural Meeting, held in Albany, New York, January 25th, 1855, "the great drought of 1854" being the subject, the secretary stated that "the experience of the past season has abundantly proved that thorough-drainage upon soils requiring it, has proved a very great relief to the farmer;" that "the crops upon such lands have been far better, generally, than those upon undrained lands, in the same locality;" and that, "in many instances, the increased crop has been sufficient to defray the expenses of the improvement in a single year."
Mr. Joseph Harris, at the same meeting, said: "An underdrained soil will be found damper in dry weather, than an undrained one, and the thermometer shows a drained soil warmer in cold weather, and cooler in hot weather, than one which is undrained."
The secretary of the New York State Agricultural Society, in his Report for 1855, says: "The testimony of farmers, in different sections of the State, is almost unanimous, that drained lands have suffered far less from drought than undrained." Alleghany county reports that "drained lands have been less affected by the drought than undrained;" Chatauque county, that "the drained lands have stood the drought better than the undrained." The report from Clinton county says: "Drained lands have been less affected by the drought than undrained." Montgomery county reports: "We find that drained lands have a better crop in either wet or dry seasons than undrained."
B. F. Nourse, of Orrington, Maine, states that, on his drained land, in that State, "during the drought of 1854, there was at all times sufficient dampness apparent on scraping the surface of the ground with his foot in passing, and a crop of beans was planted, grown and gathered therefrom, without as much rain as will usually fall in a shower of fifteen minutes' duration, while vegetation on the next field was parching for lack of moisture."
A committee of the New York Farmers' Club, which visited the farm of Prof. Mapes, in New Jersey, in the time of a severe drought, in 1855, reported that the Professor's fences were the boundaries of the drought, all the lands outside being affected by it, while his remained free from injury. This was attributed, both by the committee and by Prof. Mapes himself, to thorough-drainage and deep tillage with the subsoil plow.
Mr. Shedd, in the N. E. Farmer, says:
"A simple illustration will show the effect which stagnant water, within a foot or two of the surface, has on the roots of plants.
"Perhaps it will aid the reader, who doubts the benefit of thorough-draining in case of drought, to see why it is beneficial.