118 STATE BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



become comparatively exhausted ami would not produce more tliau would be 

 required to feed her own rapidly increasing population." A French writer 

 has also expressed the same opinion. Such a criticism would have been just, 

 and such a proi)hecy likely to be fulfilled as things were a few years ago, but 

 v,'e trust — we know — that a change is taking place; we are becoming better 

 farmers, keeping better stock, using more perfect machinery and more of it, 

 more judiciously combining stock-raising and grain-growing, more carefully 

 saving and more wisely applying fertilizers to the soil, and in numerous ways 

 more intelligently recognizing the requirements of tliose great laws of nature, 

 a compliance with which so surely underlies our greatest success as farmers. 

 The fact that we are able to respond to the demand that comes from the 

 emjity granaries of Europe, and for their cargoes of gold to ship them our sur- 

 plus wheat by hundreds of millions of bushels, is not a result alone of our 

 largely increased cultivated acreage, but of the gratifying fact that we are, by 

 a more intelligent and better system of agriculture jjj'odiccmg much more to the 

 acre. Such is the fact as shown by statistics throughout nearly the entire 

 grain-growing sections of our country, and especially is it the case in our uoble 

 Michigan, where, even during the past six years of jianic, while the financial 

 coast has been thickly strewn with the wrecks of the shattered fortunes of 

 merchants, manufacturers and others, agriculture has nearly doubled the pro- 

 ductions of the State ; we have learned lessons not only in agricultural science 

 but in economy, and diminished the sum total of our indebtedness. The real 

 wealth of our farmers has increased, and what is better still, we have, by 

 increased intelligence, become better farmers, a fact shown by the better con- 

 dition of our farms, the greater evidences of culture and refinement that is 

 seen about our homes, our greatly improved stock, and our largely increased 

 product per acre. These and many other results that might be enumerated are 

 very largely due to the influence of farmers' organizations. 



FORENOON SESSION. 



The first paper of this session was by Mr. C. B. Kidder on 



FARM DRAINAGE. 



While presenting to you a few thoughts on the subject of farm drainage, you 

 will please bear in mind that they are the views of a comparatively inexperi- 

 enced farmer, who came here rather as a learner than as a teacher. 



It seems to be the almost universal idea among farmers that the cost of 

 drainage is so great and the profit so small that only those who have a great 

 amount of capital can afEord to drain their lands, and even those only when 

 the land is remarkably wet, such as a swamp or sink hole ; that when the farm 

 is clear of all places where water would stand upon the surface of the ground 

 through the greater part of the year their duty in that direction is fulfilled and 

 nothing more is needful ; but not so. The farm should certainly be clear of all 

 such places, but there are principles of drainage beyond this that many farmers 

 very little think of. Underdrains not only rid the land in times of freshet of ex- 

 cessive dampness by conducting it away, but in times of severe drouth they relieve 

 its dryness by rendering the soil loose and porous, so that it is permeated by 



