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Cole's combined system of drainage and irrigation
Cole's combined system of drainage and irrigation Author:A. P. Cole Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Drainage. If with a system of irrigation a proper system of drainage be also combined, the tiller of the soil will remove two adverse influenc... more »es against which he now contends. Water is a good servant but a bad master. To make it our servant, not only must be it supplied in sufficient quantities, but it must be supplied in such a way as to perfectly control its effects upon soil and crop. Stagnant water upon or near the soil's surface, works injury in many ways. It prevents early working and seeding, remains cold and becomes sour, generally destroying the seed of crops put upon the ground, or drowns out and rots the root of any which may chance to start. With the coming of hot weather, baking of the surface follows, cracks and fissures in the soil admit the burning rays of the sun and the heated air, and partial, if not total, destruction of the crop is the result. Drain, and the stagnant water is carried off, the texture of the soil improved by being made more porous, drier, looser, and more friable and light; air and the rain-fall are more perfectly absorbed, and the soil made ready for tillage some weeks earlier by soil heat. Still farther we quote from the Drainage and Farm Journal. " The amount of heat in the soil is a matter of the highest importance to the farmer. The reader need not be told that it has a great influence upon the germination of seeds and the growth of plants. A certain amount of heat in the soil is essential to germination and growth. A certain amount of heat is also essential to the decomposition of carbonic acid by plants. Indian corn will not decompose carbonic acid at a temperature lower than about fifty-nine degrees. If the temperature of the soil can be raised, plants will grow faster. Our farm crops may wither in midsummer;...« less