ar, when a wet piece of land is in suitable condition to plow.
Usually, such tracts are unequal, some parts being much wetter than
others, because the water settles into the low places. In such fields,
we now drive our team knee deep into soft mud, and find a stream of
water following us in the furrow, and now we rise upon a knoll, baked
hard, and sun-cracked; and one half the surface when finished is shining
with the plastered mud, ready to dry into the consistency of bricks,
while the other is already in hard dry lumps, like paving stones, and
about as easily pulverized.

This is hard work for the team and men, hard in the plowing, and hard
through the whole rotation. The same field, well drained, is friable and
porous, and uniform in texture. It may be well plowed and readily
pulverized, if taken in hand at any reasonable season.

Land which has been puddled by the tread of cattle, or by wheels,
acquires a peculiar consistency, and a singular capacity to hold water.
Certain clays are wet and beaten up into this consistency, to form the
bottoms of ponds, and to tighten dams and reservoirs. A soil thus
puddled, requires careful treatment to again render it permeable to
water, and fit for cultivation. This puddling process is constantly
going on, under the feet of cattle, under the plow and the cart-wheels,
wherever land containing clay is worked upon in a wet state. Thus, by
performing a day's work on wet land, we often render necessary as much
additional labor as we perform, to cure the evil we have done.

_We may haul loads without injury on drained land._ On many farms, it is
difficult to select a season for hauling out manure, or carting stones
from place to place, when great injury is not done to some part of the
land by the operation. Many farmers haul out their manure in Winter, to
avoid cutting up their farms; admitting that the manure is wasted
somewhat by the exposure, but, on the whole, choosing this loss as the
lesser evil. In spreading manure in Spring, we are often obliged to
carry half loads, because the land is soft, not only to spare our
beasts, but also to spare our land the injury by treading it. Drained
land is comparatively solid, especially in Spring, and will bear up
heavy loads with little injury.

_Drained land is least injured by cattle in feeding._ Whether it is good
husbandry to feed our mowing fields at any time, is a question upon
which farmers have a right to differ. Without discussing