If soil be dried suddenly, from a condition of extreme wetness, it will be divided into large masses, or clods, separated by wide cracks. A subsequent wetting of the clods, which is not sufficient to expand it to its former condition, will not entirely obliterate the cracks, and the next drying will be followed by new fissures within the clods themselves; and a frequent repetition of this process will make the network of fissures finer and finer, until the whole mass of the soil is divided to a pulverulent condition. This is the process which follows the complete draining of such lands as contain large proportions of clay or of peat. It is retarded, in proportion to the amount of the free water in the soil which is evaporated from the surface, and in proportion to the trampling of the ground, when very wet. It is greatly facilitated by frost, and especially by deep frost. The fissures which are formed by this process are, in time, occupied by the roots of plants, which remain and decay, when the crop has been removed, and which prevent the soil from ever again closing on itself so completely as before their penetration; and each season’s crop adds new roots to make the separation more complete and more universal; but it is only after the water of saturation, which occupies the lower soil for so large a part of the year, has been removed by draining, that roots can penetrate to any considerable depth, and, in fact, the cracking of undrained soils, in drying, never extends beyond the separation into large masses, because each heavy rain, by saturating the soil and expanding it to its full capacity, entirely obliterates the cracks and forms a solid mass, in which the operation has to be commenced anew with the next drying.