SECRETARY'S REPORT. 99 



"Mr. Connor procured four thousand drain tiles from Albany, 

 most of them two inch, a few larger, and laid the greater part 

 of them in 1855. His land is a hill side, of easy descent, of a 

 slaty soil, with a clay subsoil in part, in other parts sand and 

 gravel. Under the most of the drained land, he found a clay 

 bottom, at about three feet depth upon which the water from the 

 hill above flowed along, oozing out upon the surface, and stand- 

 ino-, in wet seasons, in little pools, and producing grass so sour 

 and coarse, that cattle would not feed upon it, and it grew up, 

 and was moived in the pasture where cattle are kept, for bed- 

 dino-. Mr. Connor put in his drains across the slope, at three 

 rods distance apart, nearly parallel, and sixty rods long, mostly 

 in straight lines. He carried the bottoms on a regular descent, 

 without regard to the surface, laying none less than three feet 

 deep, and in some instances cutting to the depth of six or seven 

 feet, and united the whole in one main drain. 



He considered it important to cut through the upper strata 

 into the clay, to cut oS the flow of water from the higher land. 

 The general rule will ba found to be diiferent from this course 

 in one particular. The best authorities advise, ordinarily, to 

 cut the trenches up and down, and not across the hill-side. 

 But the course adopted by Mr. Connor seems effectual for his 

 purpose. His drained land has not been plowed, or changed in 

 any way, except by the drains, but so great has been the effect 

 in a single year, of removing the cold water, that the cattle have- 

 fed the ground closely, no water standing in the holes upon the- 

 surface, even a day after a heavy fall of rain. 



Mr. Connor is well pleased with his experiment, and says that 

 he had rather have the product of the land, without manure, for 

 five years to come, than to have it, had seventy-five dollars' worth 

 of manure to the acre been applied, without draining. 



He has, for many years, attempted to drain his fields with 

 stone drains, and pointed out a field where more than a hundred 

 rods of them had been laid ten years. They answered well for 

 a time, but of late have in part failed, and the cold water .begins 

 to do its secret work upon the crops. Like most of our best 

 farmers, he feels the want of drain tiles at a reasonable price." 

 Mr. French also very pertinently answers the inquiry, why 

 vtiles are better for drains than stone or wood, as follows-:. 



