_puddled_, and, thereby,
injured for a long time.

No matter how thoroughly heavy clay pasture lands may be under-drained,
the cattle should be removed from them when it rains, and kept off until
they are comparatively dry. Neglect of this precaution has probably led to
more disappointment as to the effects of drainage than any other
circumstances connected with it. The injury from this cause does not
extend to a great depth, and in the Northern States it would always be
overcome by the frosts of a single winter; as has been before stated, it
is confined to stiff clay soils, but as these are the soils which most
need draining, the warning given is important.

CHAPTER VI. - WHAT DRAINING COSTS.

Draining is expensive work. This fact must be accepted as a very stubborn
one, by every man who proposes to undertake the improvement. There is no
royal road to tile-laying, and the beginner should count the cost at the
outset. A good many acres of virgin land at the West might be bought for
what must be paid to get an efficient system of drains laid under a single
acre at home. Any man who stops at this point of the argument will
probably move West,--or do nothing.

Yet, it is susceptible of demonstration that, even at the West, in those
localities where Indian Corn is worth as much as fifty cents per bushel at
the farm, it will pay to drain, in the best manner, all such land as is
described in the first chapter of this book as in need of draining.
Arguments to prove this need not be based at all on cheapness of the work;
only on its effects and its permanence.

In fact, so far as draining with tiles is concerned, cheapness is a
delusion and a snare, for the reason that it implies something less than
the best work, a compromise between excellence and inferiority. The moment
that we come down from the best standard, we introduce a new element into
the calculation. The sort of tile draining which it is the purpose of this
work to advocate is a system so complete in every particular, that it may
be considered as an absolutely permanent improvement. During the first
years of the working of the drains, they will require more or less
attention, and some expense for repairs; but, in well constructed work,
these will be very slight, and will soon cease altogether. In proportion
as we resort to cheap devices, which imply a neglect of important parts of
the work, and a want of thoroughness in the whole, the expense for repai