CUMBERLAND COUNTY SOCIETY. 65 



An underdrain here, only ten rods long, was discharging, with 

 the velocity of a sluice, a volume of water ten inches wide by five 

 inches deep. On the 16th of August this farm was again visited, 

 and the stream from this drain seemed to have lost no force, and to 

 have diminished less than two inches in depth in that unusually dry 

 season. We were tempted to exclaim as Dobson did to the chroni- 

 cler of the Clay farm, "You've tapped the dropsy on it, for one 

 thing, that's sartin." 



Mr. M. had also made straight the crooked ways of a wandering 

 trout brook, thereby relieving his low fields of a wide-spread flow of 

 troublesome water. At our last visit he had just completed his 

 annual painting up, and no one would suppose that the plows, culti- 

 vators, &c., had undergone such hard service as we had seen them 

 in, but might reasonably think the farm had just been stocked with 

 an entire new set of tools and implements. Before leaving here, 

 "we took a deep drink all around" from a fine spring on the place, 

 having within its " true blue" curb six feet in depth of limpid water. 

 Mr. M. says he has just commenced his operations — he has certainly 

 begun in earnest. 



It will be perceived that the committee did not confine its exam- 

 inations strictly to the farms exhibited in competition for premiums, 

 but wherever invited, or whenever an opportunity offered, to observe 

 anything new or interesting, connected with agriculture, anywhere 

 upon the route required to visit the farms which were entered, suffi- 

 cient time was bestowed upon such observation. This is in accord- 

 ance with what the members of the committee conceive to be their 

 duty ; basing this belief upon their own understanding of the circular 

 from the Executive Board, the last clause of which entertains the 

 idea of an agricultural survey of each town in the county in case no 

 applications were made for the premiums, — thus indicating, as it 

 appears, a desire for more general knowledge of the agricultural 

 doings of our fellow-workers of the soil. The future proceedings of 

 the committee will of course be governed by such action as it may 

 please the Society to take upon the matter of this report. It will 

 be very gratifying to the several members of the committee if the 

 Society should see fit to charge them with more explicit directions 

 and instruction than can be gathered from the circular of 1857. 



John F. Anderson, Chairman. 

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