Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement

"[...]money in other amendments until the difficulty respecting drainage has been overcome. A water-logged soil is helpless. It cannot provide available plant-food, air, and warmth to plants. Under-drainage is urgently demanded when the level of dead water in the soil is near the surface. The area needing drainage is larger than most land-owners believe, and it increases as soils become older. On the other hand, the requirements of lime, organic matter, and available plant-food are so nearly universal, in the case of unproductive land in the eastern half of the United States, that they are here given prior consideration, and drainage is discussed in another place when methods of controlling soil moisture are described. The production of organic matter is so important to[...]".