UNDERDRAINING. 117 



our most intelligent farmers ; and I am well aware that drainage 

 with stones, as preferable to all other methods, has still many 

 advocates among us. 



Now this is not the time and place to enter into an elaborate 

 treatise upon the courses of the waters, and the character of 

 soils, and the discovery of thorough drainage, and the precise 

 angle at which the laterals must enter the main drains, and the 

 proper shape of the tile, and the water levels of our hills and 

 valleys, and the dip of the strata through which drains are to 

 run. The steps which led to thorough drainage, and the theory 

 upon which it is based, are valuable and interesting, like the 

 foundation and development of every great discovery. The 

 careful study of this cannot be too highly recommended to our 

 farmers. " Farm drainage," an elaborate and interesting work 

 on this subject, by Henry F. French, containing the whole 

 matter in a most attractive form, should be -a text-book in the 

 hands of every farmer. In this work, the subject, so far as at 

 present investigated, is exhausted. 



But there are a few practical questions connected with the 

 case which I report, which perhaps may be profitably discussed. 



I am often asked, "Is thorough drainage profitable?" This 

 depends very much upon the location and quality of the land. 

 Upon the location : The field, for instance, which I enter for 

 premium, lies, as I have said, in one of the most convenient 

 sections of my farm, and is almost indispensable to an economi- 

 cal production of the crops I need. I have other land lying 

 near, but it is occupied by orchards, or is so broken by hills 

 that cultivation is either difficult or impossible. • Here were 

 five and a half acres, unoccupied, at my very door, almost use- 

 less, unfit for grain or roots, and unable to bear grass of good 

 quality and quantity for any series of years. It is a bed of clay, 

 upholding a quality of soil which only required warmth and 

 dryness to become highly fertile. Science and the experience 

 of others taught me that such a subsoil, once disintegrated, 

 would become of the highest value for tillage, — that droughts 

 would not parch the crops, and that in its bed the growing 

 plants would find an abundance of nourishment. The super- 

 ficial cultivation which it had received, had produced no per- 

 manent benefit. The manure of fifty seasons had increased 

 the depth of the soil, but had not served to warm it. There it 



