DRAINAGE. 121 



vigor, and the severe weather of the month of December found 

 the work entirely finished, with the exception of a few laterals, 

 and the main drain south of the house. These would also have 

 been completed but for a mistake in sending tiles, which made it 

 necessary to delay the work until the ground became frozen, and 

 to hazard the danger that the caving in of the main drain in spring 

 would so choke the laterals which were laid, that they would have 

 to be taken up and remade. 



Except for this slight accident the work would have been 

 entirely completed within the time and the cost originally esti- 

 mated. 



As to the effect of the work as shown in the production of 

 better crops, it is hardly possible yet to speak with much cer- 

 tainty. The spring of 1868 was very wet, and it was impos- 

 sible to get a single field drained in time for it to be planted in 

 season for the best growth. Even if this could have been done, 

 it is not likely that, so soon after the construction of the drains, 

 their action would have been sufficient to produce a very marked 

 effect on the soil. Therefore, the most that can be said at this 

 time is with reference to the condition of the land in the matter 

 of readiness for cultivation, and this can be best illustrated by a 

 reference to the land lying north of the dwelling-house. This 

 land, as will be seen by the contour lines on the map is very much 

 the most level tract on the whole farm. Its subsoil, like the 

 subsoil of the entire farm in fact, is a very compact blue clay, 

 intermixed with gravel and streaks of black oxide of manganese, 

 the whole forming a material of so nearly impermeable a char- 

 acter that, with all my confidence in draining, I fully expected 

 that it would be several years before any very marked result was 

 produced. Hitherto this farm, though beautifully situated on the 

 top of the highest hill in this vicinity, has been so constantly wet, 

 except in seasons of extreme drought, as to have baffled every 

 effort to make it tolerably fertile, and to disappoint, if not to 

 impoverish, every owner and every tenant who has ever had any 

 thing to do with it. It has long been known in the vicinity as 

 *' Poverty Farm," and I do not believe that the average estimate 



