1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



533 



no fear on this point. In any soil but pure clay, 

 you cannot keep the -water out of the tiles, and it is 

 very rarely that clay is found that cannot be thorough- 

 ly drained with them. This is no new business, and 

 there is no need of any doubt about the facts as to 

 the operation of tile draining. 



Ml-. Colman states that the Duke of Portland had 

 completed on his immense estates seven thousand 

 miles of drains ; and that the Duke of Bedford 

 had made two hundred miles of drains on his es- 

 tates in one year ! Tiles have been used extensive- 

 ly in parts of New York, and to some extent, in 

 New England, but if evidence of their utility is 

 wanted, an experiment may be referred to, tried by 

 a neighbor of mine in Exeter, a first-rate farmer, 

 and most reliable man. 



EXPERIMENT BY MR. AVILLIAM CONNER, OF 

 EXETER, N. H. 



Mr. Conner procured 4000 drain tiles from Alba- 

 ny, most of them two inch, a few larger, and laid 

 the greater part of them in 1855. His land is a 

 hill-side, of easy descent, of a slatey soil, with a 

 clay subsoil in part, in other parts sand and gravel. 

 Under the most of the drained land, he found a 

 clay bottom, at about three feet depth upon wliich 

 the water from the hill above flowed along, oozing 

 out upon the surface, and standing, in wet seasons, 

 in Httle pools, and producing grass so sour and 

 coarse that cattle would not feed upon it, and it 

 grew up, and was mowed in the pasture where cat 

 tie were kept, for bedding. Mr. Conner put in his 

 drains across the slope, at three rods distance apart, 

 nearly parallel, and sixty rods long, mostly in 

 straight lines. He carried the bottoms on a regu- 

 lar descent, without regard to the surface, laying 

 none less than three feet deep, and in some instan- 

 ces cutting to the depth of six or seven feet, and 

 united the whole in one main drain. 



He cons^idered it important to cut through the 

 upper strata into the clay, to cut off the flow of 

 water from the higher land. The general rule will 

 be found to be different from this course in one 

 particular. The best authorities advise ordinarily, 

 to cut the trenches up and down, and not across the 

 hill-side. But the course adopted by Mr. Conner 

 seems effectual for his purpose. His drained land 

 has not been plowed, or changed in any way, ex- 

 cept by the drains, but so great has been the effect 

 in a single year, of removing the cold water, that 

 the cattle have fed the ground closely, no water 

 standing in the holes upon the surface, even a day 

 after a heavy fall of rain. 



Mr. Conner is well pleased with his experiment, 

 and says that he had rather have the product of 

 the land without manure, for five years to come 

 than to have it, had $75 worth of manure to the 

 acre been applied, without draining. 



He has for many years attempted to drain his 

 fields with stone drains, and pointed out a field 



where more than a hundred rods of them had been 

 laid ten years. They answered well for a time, 

 but of late have in part failed, and the cold wa- 

 ter begins to do its secret work upon the crops. 

 Like most of our best farmers, he feels the want 

 of drain tiles, at a reasonable price. 



^^^IY are tiles better than stone or wood? 



We may answer briefly, they are better, be- 

 cause they are more durable than any other 

 drain, being so far as ascertained, imperishable, 

 when properly laid. They are better, again, be- 

 cause mice and other vermin cannot live in them, 

 or destroy them. They are better, because they 

 drain more evenly than anything else. The labor 

 of excavating is much less than for other drains, as 

 the trenches may be very narrow. Finally, if the 

 tiles can be obtained at the fair price of manufactur- 

 ing, say $12 per 1000, they are cheaper in the first 

 cost than stone laying on the farm, because they 

 are so much more cheaply laid. There are no tile 

 works in New England that I know of, except in 

 one town in Massachusetts, AVhately, and the cost 

 of freight from there or from Albany, where some 

 three millions a year are made, nearly doubles the 

 cost to us in New Hampshire. 



But let there be a demand, and the supply will 

 come. We have clay, and capital, and men, and 

 can have tile works, whenever the farmers make 

 known their wants. For one, I am determined to 

 try the experiment of tile draining, though at too 

 great a cost for profit, perhaps, on my own farm. 

 The whole subject requires discussion. The old 

 fogies, if a cant Congressional term is allowable, of 

 course will declare that this country does not re- 

 quire draining, and that if it did, stones are best ; 

 but the young farmers who have their living to get 

 off" of land that has been skinned, will M'ork deep- 

 er than their fathers, and a few years will show a 

 systematic course of thorough draining with tiles, 

 on all our good farms. It was designed, in this 

 article, to throw out a few practical hints only. 



A full discussion of the proper depth, distance, 

 course, size, and construction of drains, would oc- 

 cupy our paper for months. This may suffice for 

 the present. 



The Rebecca Grape. — In another column may 

 be found an illustration and brief account of this 

 fruit. The remarks were made by a gentleman in 

 our office who had not seen the grape, and who, of 

 course, could say no more than he did say. We 

 have seen several bunches and tasted them, first at 

 Philadelphia in company with some half dozen of 

 the most distinguished pomologists in the country, 

 and again in a company of some thirty gentlemen 

 and ladies, several of whom are fine gardeners and 

 grape growers, and the testimony, by all, was un- 

 qualified, as to its excellence. So far as our own 

 taste is concerned, we think it equal to the Golden 



