368 State Board of Agkicut.ture, &o. 



with an ox team on any of its parts; all of which was done 

 at an expense of less than sixty dollars per acre, or $3,000 

 for the whole field. Let us see. The interest on $3,000 at 

 six per cent, is one hundred and eighty dollars per year. 

 On that meadow was and is now raised more value than 

 from any farm of one hundred acres in the town of Cabot. 

 I had a field of three acres which produced nothing of 

 value, owing to the water wliich filled the soil from innumer- 

 able springs and slough holes, which, by an expenditure of 

 one hundred dollars per acre in under-drains, was made to 

 produce two crops of hay per year, of an average of three 

 tons per acre, worth twenty dollars a ton. 



And to come nearer home, we have but to go up to Mr. 

 L. C. Fisher's farm, only half a nn'le distant, and see the 

 effect produced the first year, to be fully satisfied that under- 

 draining will pay. Mr. Fisher commenced last year with 

 half a car load of draiu tile. He afterwards bought one 

 car load, and now thinks so well of his work that he is 

 about purchasing another car load, and I prophesy that the 

 next year will show him greater improvement than the last. 

 Were it not that it might seem egotistical, I could tell of 

 an acre of land which I under-drained, near my present res- 

 idence, from which I have received greater benefit tlian any 

 named. My predecessors gave away its yearly production 

 of grass for the cutting. We are now cutting more than 

 three tons of hay j'-early from the same, besides fall feeding 

 it four months. 



Having thus far directed our attention to the necessity 

 and practicability of under-draining, we now come to the 

 mode of doing the same. I say that any man of good com- 



