The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-08-28

fast as 1t is taken up by evaporation
| at the surface. Those places where
a sort Of semi-aquatic vegetation
| springs up in his crops are unmistak-
able signs of the need of drainage. In
dry weather, those large cracks that
| appear in clay soils showing that the
ground had been cemented together
and swelled by the presence of too
much water; the twisted corn, show
ing that the plant had not been able
to send it's roots deep into the subsoil
on account of the presence of water
that 1T now needs but can not reach
because its roots are too shallow, all
indicate the need of drainage.
Farming on retentive soils without
| adequate drainage is always a hazard
Gus occupation. Work that might have
| been done in winter CIR early spring is
often delayed until late in the season,
or II the farmer succeeds in getting
In good winters work the rains,
| coming later, upset all his calcula-
tions; and he may find himself almost
as much behind at seeding time as he
| would have been had he succeeded
in accomplishing no work at all. Tha
iand mas been run together by the
heavy rains and has become as hard
in the rapidly lengthening days as it
would have been had it not been
broken at all. The farmer, at this
| stage in the years work, and often
before he has single acre of crop
started Off to growing, has already
given up all hope of making a good
crop, and will content himself with
doing the best he can" and trust TO
luck" 1t is true, that the seasons
are sometimes favorable, and he may
make fair or even q good crop; but
too often the seasons are unfavorable
and his year of patient effort may be
without profit to him. He looks upon
failure this year as one of those nee
essary evils that must be encountered
IN any business, and over which he
has no control, and hopes that the
next year may be better one. Sup
pose he makes four fair crops and
loses the fifth crop; he still makes
some shift to continue his business.
What other vocation could stand such
losses? Suppose he could have saved
that fifth crop by drainage is that all
ne would have saved? BY no means;
the drainage that would have saved
the fifth crop would have made all
the other crops better. The cops which
IN those rainy years hardly repaid
the cost of cultivation might have re-
turned a good profit; and that
drought year when only a fair crop
was made might have been remem-
bered as year of abundance.
Underdrainage is not in it's expert
mental stage. In England after the
good effects of draining retentive soils
became generally known, the work of
draining went on very rapidly, and it
soon became difficult to rent those
soils in their undrained state.
| Whether underdrainage does or
does not pay is the question that
comes to the mind of the farmer
when contemplating such work. I
shall give no long array of figures to
show that underdrainage pays, but
Will merely call his attention to some
effects Of underdrainage, perhaps in
his own field, that he may have no.
ticed without referring them to their
true cause.
The difference between the fine corn
fringing a deep ditch cut through
some rich bottom and the stunted
corn little further out where the
land has been made almost a marsh
by excessive rain, is the effect of un
derdrainage. The promising crop
growing on the we'll cultivated banks
OF your creek or canal, while a little
further out from the creek you have
| given up trying has been made possi-
ble by the soil drainage effected by
the deep channel of the creek.
| Perhaps the good crop extends a
hundred feeet Or more from the creek
and then dwindles down to nothing.
! What If there had been another deep
| cnannel out there, and parallel to the
creek? 1t would have made good an.
o'her pelt hundred feet wide, and so
oh across the field. But in the place
| of the open channel q line of small
! 'ies paced at the same depth would
| have answered the purpose inst as
we'll.