38 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Dr. Durfee. How near together do you lay these drains ? 



Col. Waring. Those I am laying now are forty feet apart. 

 Perhaps that is a little further apart than they had better be 

 laid, with a depth of 8^- feet ; but on figuring up the cost, as I 

 have to do, I found that was as near together as I could afford 

 to lay theru. The rule, so far as there can be a rule for any- 

 thing about which so little is known, is to put drains that are 

 four feet deep forty feet apart; if made more shallow, as I 

 think they may be, with profit, they should be placed nearer 

 together. The custom in some parts of England, in heavy 

 clay lands, is to make the drains three feet deep and twenty-one 

 feet apart. 



It would take too long to discuss the reasons why draining is 

 necessary, and besides, in my experience, I have never found 

 that any amount of discussion as to the reasons why it was 

 necessary was effective. The only thing that farmers want to 

 know about draining is whether it will pay, and if they find 

 that it does, reasons seem to have very little to do with the 

 adoption of the process. I am satisfied, that if it were not for 

 the inordinate cost of draining, if it could be done for fifty dol- 

 lars an acre, even, most of the land of the island of Rhode Island 

 that needs draining (and that is probably more than one-half 

 of the whole), would be drained by the farmers who own the 

 land or rent it. Of course, a majority of the land of New 

 England does not need draining. I think it was one of the 

 great fallacies of the early teachers of the system, that draining 

 would not only make wet land dry, but dry land wet. Drain- 

 ing will enable heavy, wet land, which suffers very much in 

 summer, to absorb moisture from the atmosphere and so resist 

 the drought ; but if a piece of land is already dry enough to 

 have a free circulation of air through it, I doubt if it will be 

 materially benefited by draining. • 



Secretary Flint. How about the comparative cost of stone 

 and tile drains? Many farmers cannot see the economy of 

 using tiles, when they have plenty of stone on the land which 

 is to be drained. Possibly the Colonel can give us some infor- 

 mation on that point. 



Col. Waring. I have no question that tiles are much 

 cheaper, even at the high price we have to* pay for them now. 

 I have heard it stated very often, by farmers who have tried the 



