08 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Draining" saves and economises manures, but it cannot enable 

 us to dispense with them. 



It is found by experience, that a good manuring will do bet- 

 ter service for a four years course of crops on drained laud^ 

 than the same quantity for a three years course on similar laud 

 not drained, and leave it in better condition at the end of the 

 course. 



If we filter the water from a barn yard, through three feet of 

 soil, it runs off clear water, leaving its manure in the soiL 

 Solutions from solid manures upon or near the surface of drained 

 lands, are carried into, not through the soil. 



I have written a longer letter than I intended, yet only a 

 small part of what ought to be said on a subject so important f 

 have touched on many points, yet have done justice to none. 

 Other matters demand my attention, or I would gladly try to 

 give this a better advocacy. 



Yery truly yours, 



B. F. Xquese. 

 iS*. L. Goodale, Sccretm^y, S)'c." 



"W. D. Dana, of Perry, writes me as follows : " Under-draining 

 has been practiced but little. The cost depends very much ou 

 the nature of the soil, muck or peat swamp being mucli easier 

 dug than clay or hard pan. The results, of course, arc such aa 

 must always be the difference between growing g, plant in light,, 

 warm earth, or attempting to grow it with its feet in cold spring 

 water. In one instance within my knowledge, fifty rods of drain 

 and six hundred pounds of guano have given on one acre a crop 

 of rutabagas, nine hundred bushels ; ditto wheat, twenty bushels j 

 ditto grass, three tuns, and the promise of three tuns the pres- 

 ent year, where before draining, about five hundred pounds of 

 swamp grass and flags used to be cut and carried out on hay- 

 poles ; oxen could not then go on it, now a mowing machine 

 and a pair of horses find no trouble." 



The following experiment is related by Henry F. French, Esq.; 

 of New Ilampshire, of a neighbor, Mr.Wm. Connor, Exeter, and 

 is inserted here under the belief that it is not seriously damaged 

 for our use on account of having been performed a score of miles 

 or so, outside the limits of Maine, rather than within it. 



