416 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



clouds. My waterworks cost 81,000, and Liave paid for themselves 

 several times. If from what I have said some will follow my advice 

 they will find it more profitable, more beneficial than anything they can 

 do." Mr. Ohmer, of Montgomery (;ounty, Ohio, said that he wished to 

 emphasize the importance of discussion on the droughts, and he related 

 his experience in raising good crops of blackberries in dry weather, re- 

 alizing $1,000 on a four acre patch. In reply to questions Mr. Smith 

 said he commenced under-draining twenty-five years ago and it never 

 failed to work well. He had always fertilized and cultivated well. If 

 he had to leave off one of these aids in obtaining good crops he knew 

 not which he would let go. He placed his tiles about three feet be- 

 neath the surface of the ground. The bottom of the alleys were from 

 twelve to eighteen inches beneath the surface of the beds and two feet 

 -wide. In draining orchards, Mr. Smith said, he would place tiles half 

 way between the rows of trees. A gentleman from South Carolina re- 

 ported that he drainage had increased Sea Island cotton crops in his 

 State very materially, and he was assured that it was a benefit to any 

 kind of crops. Mr. C. A. Green, of ISTew York, spoke of mulch made 

 by cultivation as being of great benefit to the crops, and wood 

 ashes used in his State were plowed under the soil without percepti- 

 ble effect. In reply to a question from Dr. McKay, Mr. Smith said 

 that the cost of tiling to him was $15 per acre. Mr. Harrison, of 

 Painesville, O., said that he put in about seventy acres of tile this spring 

 at a cost of $45 per acre. He put the tiles in two rods apart, using 

 about eighty rods of tile to the acre. Professor Claypole, of Akron, 

 said that the carbonate of potash in the ashes absorbed much moisture 

 from the atmosphere, and would hold this moisture despite the great 

 heat of the sun. Mr. Smith said he used both bleached and dry ashes on 

 his farm indiscriminately. Mr. Caywood, of New York, advised that 

 small tiles be used, on the principle that the smaller the drainage the 

 better it will be for the grounds. Prof. McKay said he wished to em-' 

 phasize one feature of drainage that was overlooked. He thought 

 drainage was a big thing in rainy wea,ther, and the wet weather of his 

 State had testified to this during the past summer. The wet weather 

 was succeeded by a dry month, and the tile-drained land did as well in 

 the latter season as during the wet period. Dr. Townsend, professor 

 of agriculture in the Ohio State University, was of the opinion that the 

 smaller the tile, if it will carry the water, the better. His farm was 

 drained with two-inch tile, with larger ones to drain off all the wa- 

 ter collected in the smaller drains. Willow trees plugged up drains 

 very effectually. Peach trees were bad for plugging up drains, but 



