_We may haul loads without injury on drained land._ On many farms, it is difficult to select a season for hauling out manure, or carting stones from place to place, when great injury is not done to some part of the land by the operation. Many farmers haul out their manure in Winter, to avoid cutting up their farms; admitting that the manure is wasted somewhat by the exposure, but, on the whole, choosing this loss as the lesser evil. In spreading manure in Spring, we are often obliged to carry half loads, because the land is soft, not only to spare our beasts, but also to spare our land the injury by treading it. Drained land is comparatively solid, especially in Spring, and will bear up heavy loads with little injury. _Drained land is least injured by cattle in feeding._ Whether it is good husbandry to feed our mowing fields at any time, is a question upon which farmers have a right to differ. Without discussing 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: