SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 277 



Mr. Brown — A well-kept lawn means work. Mine is too large. 

 Farmers should avoid the mistake of making thera so large that they 

 cannot be kept iji proper condition. 



Mr. Dennis — These discussions are interesting, but for lack of 

 time they must be cut short. I therefore move that the discussion 

 of each paper be limited to ten minutes and each speaker to three 

 minutes. 



Carried. 



The nominating committee now reported, recommending the fol- 

 lowing names for the several offices: 



President — Prof. T.J. Burrill, Champaign. 



First Vice-President — C. N. Dennis, Hamilton. 



Second Vice-President — J. W. C. Gray, Atwood. 



Third Vice-President — Joseph Heinl, .Jacksonville. 



Secretary — A. C. Hammond, Warsaw. 



Assistant Secretary — Miss Bessie M. Nash, Warsaw. 



Treasurer — C. C. Hoppe, Warsaw. 



Mr. Dunlap — I move that the report of the committee be 

 adopted, and the parties named be considered the ofKcers of the 

 Society. 



Carried. 



l)RAINA(i£, ECONOMIC AND SANITARY. 



BY nil. (4ITHENS. 



Long before the invention of printing, careful observers wrote 

 and promulgated their views on the subject of drainage for the ben- 

 efit of crops. But little is said on the subject as a sanitary measure. 

 One writer cluims that Noah, as an agriculturist, took a lively in- 

 terest in the drainage question. A writer in 1650 gets down to 

 business by declaring the great utility of special drainage, and says, 

 for "thy drayning trench it must be made so deepe that it goe to 

 the bottom of the cold spewing moist watter, that feeds the flagg 

 and the rush. For the widejiesse of it use thine own lilierty. But 

 supi)0se this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the rush and flagg 

 should lie at a yarde or four feet deepe, then to the bottom of it 

 thou must goe, if ever thou wilt drayn it to a purpose, for though 

 the wattor fatten naturally yet still the coldnesse and moysture lies 

 gnawing within, and not being taken clean away it cats out what 

 the watter fattens. And so the goodnesse of the water is, as it were. 



