296 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Messrs. Blow, Hemingway, and Calkins heartily supported the sentiments 

 expressed by Mr. Porter. 



Mr. Norton, of Oakland, thought that mutton was an object as much as 

 wool, and for that purpose there was no sheep equal to grade fine wools or of 

 coarse wool sheep. The coarse wools are more hardy, and considering the care 

 they arc likely to get, are better adapted to the ordinary farmer. 



Mr. C. T. Dean thought that wool was the prime object, and that fine wool 

 sheep were as good for mutton as coarse wool. 



Mr. Norton said he believed in fine wool; he had a stock of J 30 such sheep 

 that for several years had sheared an average of eight to nine pounds per head. 

 He thought, however, that the fine wool sheep were more likely to liave the 

 foot-rot than coarse wools. A large price acts in the same way as an adver- 

 tisement, and for that reason alone it pays to get high priced sheep. 



Prof. Johnson emphasized the weeding-out process as the most likely to 

 improve any flock. 



DPtAINAGE. 



BY HON.- JOHN" T. RICH. 

 [Read at Lapeer Institute.] 



• 



The subject of drainage is one of the most important which demands the 

 .attention of the farmer of the present day. Not only is it desirable and 

 profitable, but with the use of improved farm machinery, the modern plan of 

 rotation of crops, and the generally adopted plan of mixed husbandry, it is 

 ■absolutely indispensable to successful farming. The advantages of drainage 

 are numerous, and may perhaps be considered as well understood. Yet, until 

 ■within a very short time, they have certainly not been appreciated in this 

 ivicinity. 



One of the first advantages to be noticed in a drained field is the difference 

 in the time in which it becomes fit to work in the spring. How often it is that 

 a large field is all in condition to work except an acre or two, and the wet part 

 bears such a relation to the dry that it is impossible to properly work the dry 

 until the wet portion is dry enough to plow, often causing the loss of time 

 enough, in the first instance, to have permitted the field to have been nearly 

 or quite ready for sowing, had the land been properly drained. And it 

 frequently happens that before the wet part has become sufficiently dry to 

 work, rain again falls, and the delay is repeated, causing loss enough in some 

 •seasons in a single year to pay for the drainage twice. 



Even if the wet part of a field is in sucli shape as to permit the dry to be 

 worked separately, the actual expense of working the dry part is almost always 

 greater than to work the whole if it was all dry. Take next the convenience 

 of drawing loads across the drained ground, over that whicli has not been 

 drained : the extra labor for both men and teams in working the wet, niuddy 

 laud, the difference in the condition of the same ground when dry — the first 

 hard, lumpy, full of cracks; the other rich, mellow, and in such condition as 

 to make it a positive pleasure to plow it, and the difference is beyond descrip- 

 •tion. Then the difference between a field on which is growing an even, full 



