118 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



lay in that solid basin of clay, inoperative, lifeless, and con- 

 stantly borne away by the streams which ran along the dead 

 furrows, and down the great open canal, into the highway, for 

 the benefit of no man. I found that the expense of ploughing 

 such land was too great. The open ditch was an obstacle, and 

 the beds were troublesome. The process of ploughing was 

 slow and heavy : and the result was often attended with great 

 uncertainty. As a good farmer who had formerly rented the 

 farm, said to me, "If I ploughed that field too early in the 

 spring, I lost my crop, and if I ploughed it too late, I could do 

 nothing with it." It is to be presumed that this is not the only 

 piece of land in Essex County, of this description. 



Now, without entering into a precise calculation of the return 

 I have received for the investment of fifty dollars an acre on 

 these five and a half acres — a thing which is impossible — it is 

 very easy to perceive that the crop of the present year alone, 

 increased as it has been, and in some portions of the field 

 insured by the drainage, would go far towards my remuneration. 

 I now have a good field, whereas I formerly had a poor one. 

 And it is hardly necessary to demonstrate to any farmer that 

 an expenditure of fifty dollars on an acre of land, advantageously 

 situated and of proper quality, is not an extravagant or unprofit- 

 able outlay. Were my land the only specimen of drainage in 

 this country, it might be necessary for me to be more accurate; 

 but the operations of Mr. Johnson, of New York State, the father 

 of thorough drainage among us, and of some of the best farmers 

 in our country, who expend nothing on their farms without a 

 fair prospect of reward, are a sufficient guaranty that Ibis mode 

 of improving the land not only pays well, but is indispensable 

 to good agriculture. 



I would not be understood as saying that an indiscriminate 

 application of thorough drainage to all soils is to be recom- 

 mended. There are soils which do not require drainage, though 

 not so frequently met with as many suppose. Heavy clay soils 

 are a bane to the farmer without it — a blessing with it. There 

 is a large quantity of what is called cold, springy land — land in 

 which the water, percolating from the hill-sides is caught and 

 held, and in which the springs thus fed are constantly seeking 

 an outlet on the surface for the want of any other mode of 

 escape, which would be made highly valuable by thorough 



