68 THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 



Twiggs. &quot; Showed it me tother day when I was up 

 there.&quot; 



&quot; And how many does he calculate to sell ?&quot; I inquired. 



&quot; A hundred thousand the first year, and half a million 

 the second. Had the hundred thousand engaged before 

 he started.&quot; 



Miles Standish, you know, is a historic name, one of 

 the first Puritan families that landed upon the shores of 

 New England, and here is the family, in direct descent 

 from the first Miles, in the seventh generation. The 

 present Miles owns the ancestral farm ; and on one corner 

 of it is a clay bed, of unrivaled excellence. It has been 

 used for some years as a brick-yard, and many a kiln has 

 been sent off to the neighboring city, and down the river. 

 But the reverses of last year stopped the demand for 

 brick, and Miles has been in trouble ever since, until I 

 hinted to him carelessly last spring, that he had better go 

 to making tiles, and drain his farm. 



I have since read somewhere, that this is the way they 

 do so much draining in the old country. The tiles are 

 made upon the farm where they are to be used, to a great 

 extent, and there is very little paid out for freight. The 

 owners of the large estates there have plenty of capital 

 for the purpose, and tiles are made and put down by the 

 million. But it will probably never be the best way with 

 us for every man to try to make bis own tile. Our farms 

 are too small, and, as a rule, our farmers have not the 

 necessary capital, even if they have clay beds. What we 

 want is a tile factory in every neighborhood, or district 

 of twenty miles diameter or less ; so that a farmer with 

 his surplus team can cart tiles to his farm in the leisure 

 parts of the year. He can, in this way, make his team 

 serviceable, which would otherwise lie idle. He will not 

 feel the expense of freight at all. 



As matters now are, freight is the great bugbear which 

 prevents people from going to draining. The two-inch 



