o 



oG STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



be sufficient to make an embankment that will exclude the How from neigh- 

 boring lands, from a freshet, or from the back set of the river. 



At the lowest corner of the ditches there might be placed a windmill that 

 can be built for less cost than a hundred dollars, which would in a short time 

 clear the ditches of water. It would be thrown up by paddle wheels into an 

 outer ditch communicating with the river. The land would be practically ele- 

 vated in jn-oportion to the depth of the ditch. 



Tiie entire land could be drained at less expense than the same area of tim- 

 bered land could be cleared and made ready for culture. It would have the 

 advantage of being without stumps, of being on the border of a navigable 

 stream and having under it an inexhaustible bed of salt. Suppose a ditch 

 was made on each section line and of so much width that the earth thrown out 

 would make a good road. It would serve the two useful purposes, of drainage 

 and travel. 



As nearly all the Saginaw land is in some slight degree higher than the 

 river, the labor and expense of pumping out would be very slight. 



The embankments in the Netherlands here have in large part to be made of 

 sand ; the Avater oozes through. But the clay of the Saginaw land makes 

 such an imjiervious putty that it would well exclude waier. 



The process is indeed so simple that it would already have been put into ex- 

 toisive operation in the Saginaw valley, if other lands had not been so easily 

 obtainable. But now, as attention is being more generally turned to agricult- 

 ure, it is worth the cost to any owner of such land to elevate it by ditches. So 

 soon as the water is removed, and the land changed from a soaked to a dry 

 condition, the sourness will disappear, and it will produce grasses and grains 

 of the first quality. 



A sample of the change may be seen in the prairie lands of ex-Senator 

 Chandler, near Lansing, who was induced to buy them and experiment from 

 what he saw during a visit to Hollolland. It may yet be found that the most 

 successful way of dredging the Saginaw river is to raise embankments on either 

 side, and thus by confining its waters increase the force of its current. 



Dr. 11. C. Kedzie gave a lecture on the "Comparative feeding value of corn 

 and millstuffs." (See lectures given at more than one institute.) 



Judge Marston read the following paper on the 



IMPORTANCE OF THOROUGHBRED STOCK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW 



COUNTRY. 



In presenting my views upon this subject, I wish it distinctly understood at 

 the outset, that I have no personal interests to subserve. I have no stock for 

 sale, and while I may have some partiality for a jnirticular breed, yet I concede 

 they are better for the city than the country, and it will be seen before I con- 

 clude that there are other breeds to Avhich I award the palm. 



Fancy farming, by professional men, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and man- 

 ufacturers, is a subject for comment, and affords much amusement to the ordi- 

 nary practical farmer. He looks upon them as men possessing more of Solo- 

 mon's gold than of his wisdom, rusliing into all sorts of extravagant experi- 

 ments, spending their money freely in costly farm-buildings, in new varieties 

 of seeds, in fancy stock and in various other ways, from which, in his opinion, 

 no good results can flow, except to demonstrate their folly. 



But softly my friends. Are there not two sides to this question? May not 

 these kid glove farmers be doing a very important service, in cultivating a 



