the question,
it is enough for our purpose, that most farmers feed their fields late
in the Autumn. Whether we approve it, or not, when the pastures are bare
and burnt up, and the second crop in the home-field is so rich and
tempting, and the women are complaining that the cows give no milk, we
usually bow to the necessity of the time, and "turn in" the cows. The
great injury of "Fall-feeding" is not usually so much the loss of the
grass-covering from the field, as the poaching of the soil and
destruction of the roots by treading. A hard upland field is much less
injured by feeding, than a low meadow, and the latter less in a dry than
a wet season. By drainage, the surplus water is taken from the field.
None can stand upon its surface for a day after the rain ceases. The
soil is compact, and the hoofs of cattle make little impression upon it,
and the second or third crop may be fed off, with comparatively little
damage.

_Weeds are easily destroyed on drained land._ If a weed be dug or pulled
up from land that is wet and sticky, it is likely to strike root and
grow again, because earth adheres to its roots; whereas, a stroke of the
hoe entirely separates the weeds in friable soil from the earth, and
they die at once. Every farmer knows the different effect of hoeing, or
of cultivating with the horse-hoe or harrow, in a rain storm and in dry
weather. In one case, the weeds are rather refreshed by the stirring,
and, in the other, they are destroyed. The difference between the
surface of drained land and water-soaked land is much the same as that
between land in dry weather under good cultivation, and land just
saturated by rain.

Again, there are many noxious weeds, such as wild grasses, which thrive
only on wet land, and which are difficult to exterminate, and which
give us no trouble after the land is lightened and sweetened by
drainage. Among the effects of drainage, mainly of a chemical nature, on
the soil, are the following:

_Drainage promotes absorption of fertilizing substances from the air._
The atmosphere bears upon its bosom, not only the oxygen essential to
the vitality of plants, not only water in the form of vapor, to quench
their thirst in Summer droughts, but also various substances, which rise
in exhalations from the sea, from decomposing animals and vegetables,
from the breathing of all living creatures, from combustion, and a
thousand other causes. These would be sufficient to corrupt the very
air,