1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



20o 



that deep tillage was alcie necessary to produce 

 a profitable result for agricultural labors. But 

 ■where these did not exist — where the soil rested 

 on a bed of clay, or was deluged by springs — 

 art was required to enable nature to perform her 

 proper work. Almost any cold soil could be 

 brought to a kindly condition by drainage. If 

 farmers would furnish their crops with a fair 

 chance to I'emunerate them for their labor, let 

 them rid the soil of water. If they would avoid 

 the effects of drought, by allowing the roots of 

 their plants to penetrate the soil to a depth which 

 drought could never reach, let them drain the wa- 

 ter from the subsoil. If they would prevent their 

 fields from freezing to death in winter, and crack- 

 ing and parching beneath the summer's sun, they 

 should give them proper consistency by render- 

 ing the subsoil light and porous. In order to 

 be warm and fertile, and equable in its tempera 

 ture, receptive of manure, and responsive to its 

 influence, soils must be free from that supera 

 bundance of water which made it cold in winter 

 — surface-drj^ in summer — hard, clammy and for- 

 bidding. 



Dr. Loring believed one of the most valuable 

 inventions for accomplishing this object to be 

 tile-draining. He looked on Mr. Smith, of Dean- 

 ston, Stirlingshire, Scotland, who more than a 

 quarter of a century ago demonstrated the ben- 

 efits of this form of drainage, as the benefactor 

 of the farmer. His system had reclaimed thous- 

 ands of acres in his own country, and had been 

 adopted by the most enterprising farmers in our 

 own. Dr. L. also alluded to the efforts made by 

 Mr. Johnson, of Seneca county, New York, who 

 had laid more than forty miles of tiles on his 

 farm, and had increased his crops one hundred 

 fold, by proper under-draining. It was hardly 

 worth while to discuss the comparative merits of 

 the diiferent modes of draining at the present 

 day. Stone drains had had their day. Except 

 under extraordinary circumstances, they were not 

 so economical as tile drains, and in no case were 

 they so effectual. Every man, it was reasonable 

 to assume, who undertook thorough-drainage, 

 bad advanced far enough in agricultural science 

 to avail himself of tiles, if they could be had 

 within reasonable reach. Dr. Loring said he 

 did not propose to explain their construction, or 

 their mode of application, but simply give his 

 own experience of the use of tiles. He had on 

 his farm a finely located field of four and one- 

 half acres, level, warm, convenient to his barn- 

 yard, and in every way a tempting piece of soil 

 to cultivate. For half a century, however, it had 

 been a reproach to the science of farming. It 

 rested on an impervious bed of clay, into which 

 all the water from the surrounding hills, and 

 from four and one-half acres of overhanging 



clouds, was sure to be caught. It had been 

 drained for generations by a deep, unsightly, open 

 ditch, and was laid out in beds, with dead fur- 

 rows. Many a crop had been lost there ; and 

 farmers always said it was plowed either a day 

 too early or a day too late. When Dr. L. took 

 it, it had, he said, long been laid down to grass, 

 and every where the nutritious grasses were being 

 expelled by rushes and weeds. He cut about 

 half a ton of hay per acre from it in the season 

 of 1857. On the first day of December of that 

 year, the season being propitious, he had the 

 open ditch filled in above two rows of four-inch 

 sole tiles, from three to five or six feet deep — a 

 thousand feet in length — with a fall of about four 

 inches per 100 feet. Into these main tiles, on 

 each side, he inserted two-inch sole tiles at dis- 

 tances varying from 20 to 32 feet, with the same 

 fall for the water. The drains were filled at once, 

 and their operation commenced. All winter they 

 continued to discharge water from the field ; and 

 at the opening of spring its cultivation was be- 

 gun. Here and there between the lines of drain 

 were hollows which the plow could not obliterate, 

 and the water would stand for a short time in 

 them. But the soil improved month by month, 

 and yielded 60 bushels of corn from the acre. 

 During last autumn it was thought best to add 

 a few more drains, and while making them, the 

 workmen exclaimed — "How brittle this clay is !" 

 The water was gradually passing out of it. The 

 field already showed the benefit of the expense 

 put upon it. The snow melted rapidly upon it, 

 and it was fast becoming suitable for root culture, 

 for which it was designed the coming season. 

 The cost of draining it had been about $45 per 

 acre ; and. Dr. L. said, were he disposed to drain 

 another piece of land, he should adopt the very 

 same method of doing it — with the exception of 

 laying the two-inch lateral tiles 16 or 18 feet 

 apart instead of 30 feet — as a stiff, tenacious clay 

 demanded the lesser width. He could not too 

 highly recommend the draining system to farm- 

 ers at large, and would urge the encouragement 

 of the system of thorough drainage, by all prop- 

 er means, at the hands of our agricultural socie- 

 ties, and of the Commonwealth. As there were 

 several gentlemen present who had studied drain- 

 age, and experimented as well as he, the Chair- 

 man would proceed to call upon them for their 

 opinions as to its value. 



Mr. B. V. French, of Braintree, was the first 

 speaker called upon, and he stated his experi- 

 ence in draining in his usually familiar style — 

 having first given a succinct history of the im- 

 provement, and commended the principle of en- 

 couragement offered to draining improvers by 

 the English government and by private corpora- 

 tions. The general argument he used was in fa- 



