216 • BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



This subject is interwoven with a variety of considerations. 

 The increased receipts for fertilizers, as well as thorough cul- 

 tivation that can be attained, are truly wonderful. What I have 

 to say is the result of the practical workings of a system of un- 

 derdraining, carried on for more than thirty years, although 

 much more largely for the last twelve years ; not by proxy, 

 but with my own hands and hired help to work with me, hav- 

 ing laid nearly all of the drains myself, closely watching the 

 tendency of the surplus water on the different slopes of land, 

 and among the various strata of soil so prevalent in Franklin 

 County and vicinity. Porous* and gravelly soils, with no 

 underlying strata of clay or hard-pan, are not superabundant 

 in this locality, except in some portions of our river-bottoms. 

 On the contrary, a very large proportion of our soil is a dark, 

 strong loam, of from twelve to eighteen inches in depth, with 

 an underlying hard-pan bottom of extreme solidity ; a soil 

 which, when freed from an excess of water, and well culti- 

 vated, becomes very productive and valuable. 



There is comparatively but a small area of our lands lying 

 in low swamps or muck-beds, the receipts of the washings of 

 our hills for ages, the draining of which I do not propose to 

 consider at this time further than to make them accessible as 

 our depositories to draw from in the increase of our composts, 

 and then return them to their more elevated nativity, and 

 those I would leave in open drains. It is to the more elevated 

 portions of our table-land, meadows and slopes of various de- 

 grees, which so largely preponderate in Western Massachu- 

 setts, that I would speak of now; such lands, too, as some 

 claim unquestionable authority in declaring that they do not 

 need draining or will 'not pay to underdrain. A large pro- 

 portion of our soil is of a loamy, spongy nature, resting upon 

 an unfathomable stratum of tenacious hard-pan, assisting their 

 retentive powers in time of surplus water, to the detriment, if 

 not the destruction of crops. Our slopes abound in springs, 

 constantly diverging in every direction to the detriment of 

 cultivation and quality of grazing. The best, and perhaps 

 sole effectual remedy is underdraining. 



In my experience of the laying of nearly three miles of 

 underdrain I have tried, first, to ascertain the various sources 

 from which the excess of water proceeds, whether from 



