222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



feet high, and some of the heads measured nine inches in 

 length. That was the effect, I say, of draining the land. On. 

 the other side of the ditch, where no lateral drains were made, 

 the hassocks remain to this day. 

 ■ This is certainly one of the most interesting subjects relating 

 to farming operations, and I think that our people ought to give 

 it more attention. I feel obliged to the Board of Agriculture 

 for introducing it here, and hope it will be fully discussed. 



Mr. Ward. This is a subject on which I am entirely igno- 

 rant, and I would like to ask Mr. Brown if, in connecting his 

 pipes, he makes them close, so that there shall no water work in 

 in at the joints ? 



Mr. Brown. No, sir, you cannot get them so close together. 

 As has already been said, they are a little crooked, because they 

 are dried standing up edgewise. But if you should make the 

 joints perfectly tight, the water would get through. Suppose 

 you suspend a brick by a string and pour water upon it ; in 

 half an hour you will find the water upon the other side, 

 because the brick is porous. The tile itself is porous, and the 

 water would pass through, even if the joints were perfectly 

 tight. But you cannot make the joint so tight as to prevent the 

 water from getting in. When I lay my drains I pick up all the 

 old pieces of tin and sheet-iron I can find — sheet-iron stoves and 

 tin kitchens — and cut them up into strips, and when I have laid 

 a couple of tiles, I put a strip of this tin or sheet-iron over the 

 joint, of course covering carefully with straw, or brush, or any- 

 thing I can get, before I throw the earth on ; and never yet, 

 though I have some drains that have been in ten or fifteen years, 

 have I found a tile-drain filled up. 



The Chairman. I will ask Mr. French if he has had any 

 experience in the manufacture of these tiles ? 



Mr. French. The first tiles I used, in Exeter, N. H., I 

 bought in Albany, paying $12 a thousand for them there, and 

 transported them at an expense of $12 a thousand more. Not 

 liking to buy them at that price, but finding, by that experi- 

 ment, that tiles were what I wanted, I went to a potter in the 

 town, and asked him if he would burn me some tiles. He said 

 he would, and I sent and got a machine to mould them, and 

 went into the manufacture myself. After a little while some of 

 my neighbors — the man who owned the clay and somebody else 



