162 OBJECTION TO THOROUGH -DRAINAGE. 



owner of a reaping and a threshing machine may culti- 

 vate as much land as he can scratch with the plough and 

 sprinkle with seed. 



A great breadth of this western New York is wet, 

 flat, and marshy ; but drainage is yet unknown. A 

 single sample of pipe-tiles was exhibited — as a curiosity, 

 I suppose. But the Society is now alive to the impor- 

 tance of drainage, not only for the purpose of drying flat 

 and obviously wet and marshy land, but of rendering 

 more productive such heavy soils as with us are so 

 generally improved by thorough-drainage ; and already 

 several tile-machines have been imported from England 

 under their auspices, and premiums offered for experi- 

 ments in thorough-draining. 



An objection to drainage Is made In this country which, 

 though sometimes urged with us, is by no means of such 

 force in England as It Is in America. The cost of this 

 improvement, even at the cheapest rate — say four pounds 

 or twenty dollars an acre — is equal to a large proportion 

 of the present price of the best land in this rich district 

 of western New York. From fifty to sixty dollars an 

 acre is the highest price which farms bring here ; and if 

 twenty-five dollars an acre were expended upon any of 

 it, the price In the market would not rise In proportion. 

 Or if forty-dollar land should actually be improved one- 

 fourth by thorough-drainage, it would still, It Is said, not 

 be more valuable than that which now sells at fifty dol- 

 lars ; so that the Improver would be a loser to the extent 

 of fifteen dollars an acre. 



This argument will appear to have greater force when 

 it is understood that there is as yet In New England and 

 New York scarcely any such thing as local attachment 

 — the love of a place, because it Is a man's own — because 

 he has hewed It out of the wilderness, and made it what 

 it is ; or because his father did so, and he and his family 

 have been born and brought up, and spent their happy 



