24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the air. The old idea was, that the soil in dry weather was 

 watered by the dew ; but that could not be, because the soil 

 is warmer than the air. Consequently, the air absorbs the 

 moisture as it rises from the soil, and when dew is deposited, 

 it is because the air becomes saturated with water, and as it 

 cools through the night, the lower stratum of air is not so 

 cold, it has more moisture than it can hold, and in a cloudy 

 night it rises up, and coming in contact with colder air, it is 

 condensed, and drops upon the surface, and there it remains 

 until the sun comes out and dries it. All you practical far- 

 mers know that if you cock up hay at night which seems 

 dry enough to get in, you will find that hay much damper 

 the next mornino^ than it was the niijht before. That water 

 comes out of the soil, and condenses in the hay just before 

 it escapes into the cold air. Now, if that hay, instead of 

 being cocked upon the ground, had been loaded on a cart, 

 you all know there would not be much more moisture in the 

 hay on the cart than there was the night before. 



Mr. Beebe. I have put up a great many cocks of hay. 

 Hay is generally cocked up because the small leaves are 

 green, and, apparently, it is not sufficiently cured, and you 

 may look at it the next morning, and you will see that the 

 moisture comes out of the largest stems of the hay, not out 

 of the ground. 



Mr. Pierce, Is not that hay left on the cart drier the 

 next morning than if it had been cocked ? That is the prac- 

 tical question. I procured the documents from Prof. Pen- 

 hallow, Prof. Sanborn and Prof. Stockbridge, and I have 

 brought you the practical conclusion. 



Mr. Ware, of Marblehead. Reference has been made to 

 two systems of drainage in the essay ; one by digging trenches 

 and filling them with loose stone, and the other by laying- 

 tile. I do not know as the speaker intended to be under- 

 stood that it is better, as a matter of economy, to drain with 

 stone, if you have the stone, in preference to tile ; but he 

 placed stone drains first in order, and tile drains second. I 

 am well aware that on many farms it is very desirable to get 

 rid of the stones, and if there is no other way to dispose of 

 them, it may be profitable to put them into drains ; but as a 

 matter of economy in building drains, it is more expensive, 



