Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . lands. By this meansthe farmers were enabled to thoroughly drain large areas of country whichotherwise would have been nearly worthless for agricultural purposes. Insome instances the earth taken from these large ditches was graded up sev-eral feet high at the side, and on the top of this levee a
Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . lands. By this meansthe farmers were enabled to thoroughly drain large areas of country whichotherwise would have been nearly worthless for agricultural purposes. Insome instances the earth taken from these large ditches was graded up sev-eral feet high at the side, and on the top of this levee a turnpike road wasconstructed, thus giving a double benefit from a single operation. The firstdraining of farms Avas in the wet spots where, usually, a single line of tiles,laid for a moderate distance, would bring the parts of the field under cultiva-tion that otherwise would be waste ; but gradually the farmers learned thatthere were other valuable effects from drainage, and that most heavy claylands would be benefited by it sufficiently to justify the expense. The fol-lowing incidental advantages have been learned: first, drainage deepens thesoil; second, it prevents the killing out of grass and grains during a wetseason; third, it makes the land warmer,; fourth, it improves the texture of. 326 TRIUMPHS AND WONDERS OF THE XIX1 CENTURY the soil and makes it possible to work and. plant it earlier in the spring;fifth, it prevents washing and waste of manure; sixth, it often preventsfailure of crops in excessively wet seasons, and enables them to endure droughtbetter in dry seasons. Although drainage is expensive it is a permanentimprovement, and in many cases the increase of the wheat crop in a singleyear has defrayed the expense of tiling the land. Another improvement, which seems to be the opposite of this, is the irri-gation of arid lands in those parts of the country where the annual rainfallis small and every summer brings a drought. In these cases, water storedin large na
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidtri, booksubjectinventions
