. We shall advert only to one of
these.

In what light ought the expenditure of money in draining to be regarded by
the practical man?

He ought to consider it only as a mercantile speculation, by which he may
or may not make a profit, according to the degree of prudence with which
it is undertaken. He has the usufruct of his farm for a certain number of
years, with liberty to crop it in a certain way. By this he hopes to make
a certain sum of money. But it is capable of improvement by draining, and
he has liberty to drain if he likes. "Well," he says to himself, "I make a
certain sum by farming my land as it is; I have here fifty pounds of ready
money, could I make more profit if I were to lay this money out in
draining it?--would it be a good speculation?" He calculates the cost of
draining and the probable return of profit, and the result is apparently
that he _can_ make more profit by this use of his money than by any other
way in which he could employ it. This being the result, the prudent man
embarks in this safe speculation. He does not bury his money in his land;
he does not give it away to the land to the loss of his family; he only
lends it for a season, and for the benefit of his family. He has made his
calculations badly, and has only his own arithmetic to blame, if he does
not get all his capital back from the land, with a handsome profit in
addition, some years before his lease has expired.

Many tenants think the interest of the landlord should enter into their
calculations, and some cherish or excite in their own minds ill feelings
towards their landlords at the idea of leaving their drains in the land
when they quit, and the land itself in better condition than when they
entered upon their farms. But this feeling arises altogether from a want
of familiarity on their part with the ordinary feelings of mercantile men
and the transactions of mercantile business. The farmer's sole aim is to
promote his own interest. If that interest is to be promoted by draining,
let him do it immediately, and with all his heart; his own profit will not
be a whit the less that the landlord comes in for a little profit too when
the lease has expired. The builder who takes thirty or forty years' lease
of a bit of land in the neighbourhood of London, is not deterred from
planting houses upon it, by the reflection that at the end of his lease
the houses will become the property of his landlord. Long before that time
has expir