132 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



Do our trenches ensure this marvellous growth and perfection 

 of fruitage, or is it not rather the fifteen inches of fine tilth upon a 

 hard pan subsoil which we have formed, that holds the rainfall 

 producing the extraordinary results as exhibited on our hillside? 



That fifteen inches of fine tilth will produce a marvel of growth 

 we well know, for years ago we tried the experiment by dipping as 

 deep down as possible with spade and fork, securing fifteen, pos- 

 sibly twenty inches of fine tilth, growing the Triomphe de Gaud 

 strawberry and other fruits to marvellous size, beauty and perfec- 

 tion. It cost us more to secure that fifteen or twenty inches of 

 fine tilth on one-sixteenth of an acre, than it is now costing to secure 

 an equally productive one five feet deep on &full acre by trenching. 



A few weeks since, among invitations received, asking us to dis- 

 course on systems of irrigation and drainage came one from Mr. 

 Newel Cheney, Secretary of the Western New York Agricultural 

 and Horticultural Association, for an address at Cuba, Allegany 

 County, during the annual meeting of said association on the llth 

 and 12th of June. Coupled with this invitation came also a pamph- 

 let containing report of proceedings and addresses at last year's 

 annual meeting of the association held at Randolph, Cattaraugus 

 County, March 13th, and 14th, 1884. Among addresses on that 

 occasion none was read with greater relish than that by Prof J. T. 

 Edwards, D. D., of Randolph, N. T., on the Conewango Valley, 

 which consists of a dead level of " about forty thousand acres of 

 oozy, unproductive swamp lands." In the opening of his address j 

 Professor Edwards asks how these swamps can be converted into 

 beautiful farms, waving with timothy and clover. From first to 

 last, the Doctor gives us a compend of good things. That Doctor 

 Edwards gave becoming directions as regarded straightening the 

 bed of the creek, and so deepening it at one point as to set the 

 waters in rapid flow along the valley beyond, is evident. So far as 



