250 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



subject. He showed me his whole operation. Divide his farm into plats, 

 four rods square ; take a borer, same as we bore post holes with, but a foot 

 in diameter ; two men can bore, five feet deep, forty holes on an acre, in 

 one day ; fill these holes with small sized pebbles, nearly full, and the land 

 will be drained at the cost of the labor of two men's work and something 

 for putting in the pebbles. A suitable borer can be made for six dollars. 

 In this way we drain an acre completely for less than Jice dollars, in place 

 of probably never less than forty dollars the common way. Generally, 

 English farmers have stiff rules and obey them. This was a bold and 

 valuable departure. Very few acres of land need any better drainage than 

 these pebble holes, through which all the surface water perpetually settles 

 below the ordinary roots of our crops, 



Hon, John Gr. Bergen, of Long Island. — We farmers sometimes say of 

 land which will not pay us well for cultivation : It is sick ! Such lands 

 require Doctor Drainage & Co. to cure them. Much the greater part of 

 our Long Island land is perfectly well and wants no doctor. We should 

 not give out from our Club the idea that no farming can be done on our 

 island without the costly processes of draining. Let particular acres be 

 examined and drained ; the general whole is very well and not sick, 



Mr. Pardee. — Still it is perfectly well known to wise agriculturists, that 

 all arable land whatever, as a general rule, is rendered much more valuable 

 by drainage, which, although expensive at first, continues for a very long 

 time to keep that land in order for the best cultivation. 



Prof. Nash. — There is very little land like that of Long Island, ever 

 reputed for quick absorption of the rains ; but much land retains too much 

 water near its surface, and all such must be drained. Clay is exceedingly 

 common in soils, and in all ages been covered with soils ; then, as a sub- 

 soil, retains too much water, such must be bored through to let the water 

 go below, out of the way of roots of our crops, for none but water plants 

 can stand having their roots in water long. Trenches, deep, by powerful 

 plows, pebbles in the bottoms of them, and the surface soil plowed back to 

 cover the peb})les deep enough to be out of the reach of the common plow- 

 share, make cheap drains, effectual in such lands as have not stiff sub-soil 

 under that. Much soil on the hills of New England are loamy, with 

 gravelly sub-soil, needs no drainage better than it has naturally. On that 

 land the farmer can hoe his corn in thirty minutes after a smart shower. 

 There is but little land, however, anywhere, but what may be greatly bene- 

 fited by draining. 



The Chairman called up the regular subjects. 



Mr. Pardee remarked that the selection of those flowers, plants, and 

 trees, best suited for a garden or farm, was of the greatest importance, and 

 not without difficulty in obtaining them. We must not only have best 

 kinds but such as are in full health. Take no peach tree from a nursery 

 or elsewhere, where the yellows exist ; no pear tree where the fruit is poor 

 as the crack in Virgalieu, &c., &c.; have no apples but such as are delicious. 

 Why encumber the garden with an indifferent one, or with a shy bearer 



