122 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



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It seeks the current that is to bear it oil in the great circuit 

 of the waters. The porous pipe which you lay in the earth 

 becomes at once a channel towards which the surrounding 

 waters tend. The pressure is on every side. That law which 

 propelled the drop through myriads of capillary tubes with 

 an irresistible force, enables it to enter through the minutest 

 passage into this artificial pathway — distilled, perhaps, — but 

 nevertheless driven there, as the fluids circulate through every 

 living thing, animal or vegetable, not by visible tubes alone, 

 but by channels which the microscope can hardly trace or 

 discover. May not the very philosophy of tile-draining, with 

 its strange success, consist in this — that on every square inch 

 of its surface are multitudes of orifices drawing the water 

 away from the adjacent soil, and acting as outlets for the 

 porous earth as the water is distilled away from it? Else 

 how is a tile drain so much more effectual than any other 

 drain ever invented ? Crevices and joints do not account 

 for this. 



It will be seen by the accompanying plan that I have varied 

 the distances between the lateral drains from thirty to forty 

 feet. In doing this I endeavored to be governed by the con- 

 dition of the land. The subsoil throughout the field is of 

 the same quality, but the upper and central portion of the 

 field being somewhat lower than the rest, and receiving more 

 flowage of water from the surrounding hill-sides, rendered 

 more frequent drains necessary. So far as I am able to 

 judge the distances adopted by me have, on most of the land, 

 proved sufficient for all practical purposes. In the middle 

 of the field, where the thirty-five feet spaces end and the forty- 

 two feet spaces begin, I thought proper to lay four intermediate 

 drains on each side of the main. These were laid last year. 

 I think I have seen the benefit of them, the collection of water 

 at that point being naturally very great. 



It is impossible to fix any rule with regard to the distances 

 of drains. But in land like my own, where the clay is very stiff 

 and the accumulation of surface water very great, I think 

 twenty-five feet in the wettest portions, and thirty-five feet in 

 the driest would be a fair and economical rule to adopt. The 

 rains in this country are often very copious, and the work of 

 relieving the soil of water is very great. Our drains should 



