1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



395 



Most men have been inclined to seek lands for 

 cultivation that seemed to require neither ditch- 

 ii'i^ or drainage. And yet, the most valuable of 

 all lands for improvement and when iuiproved, 

 are those which require these agencies, and 

 draining in particular, and extensively. And for 

 the reasons that they are susceptible, under such 

 system, of commanding, with most cert linty of 

 all lands, all the fertilizing elements of nature, 

 and of using them in exactly the best propor- 

 tions, and at the right times, and of throwing off 

 the redundancies of each, as may be best for the 

 growth, or support, or protection of the desired 

 crop. 



As a marked and instructive illustration of the 

 effects of drainage, I recollect of noting in my 

 readings some years since, the following state- 

 ments from an English paper : 



"There is a field on the estate of the Earl of 

 Leicester, at Longford, in this country, which 

 some years ago was occupied by Mr. John Sher- 

 rat, and brought forth rushes in such abundance, 

 that the occupier gave leave to any body to carry 

 them away, who would be at the trouble to mo^^' 

 them. Three years ago, the field was drained, 

 under the direction of Mr. T. Harper Foster, and 

 this year, we are told, the present occupant, Mr. 

 T. Robinson, has cut three tons an acre of as 

 nice herbage as ever grew." 



Judge Henry F. French, of New Hampshire, 

 through Messrs. A. & O. MooRE, Agricultural 

 Book Publishers, New York City, has produced 

 the most complete, instructive, readable and en- 

 tertaining manual upon Farm Drainage that 

 has been given to this reading and progressive 

 world. 



It contains a greater variety of details, of clear 

 and comprehensive, practical and practised re- 

 sults, of rules, and of reasons of rules, and of 

 modes and agencies to be employed in this de- 

 partment of agricultural economy, than all other 

 books extant, and substantially comprehending 

 all other books on the suliject. 



As the incidents of thorougJi drainage, and 

 proper to be understood, the legal rights of 

 flowage and drainage, pertaining to land owners 

 — average annual rainfalls ; snows, dews, frosts, 

 composition, filtration, absorption, and their af- 

 finities, are discussed and illustrated in a style 

 alike entertaining and instructive, and more than 

 one hundred engravings are interspersed to make 

 clear to the eye whatever the pen might have 

 failed to render clear to the commonest under- 

 standing. 



And, what is especially praiseworthy in an 

 author, he has furnished not only an elaborate 

 table of contents, but a capitally minute index, 

 ■without which the best of books is only as a 

 lighted candle under a half-bushel measure. 



Judge French is himself a practical farmer as 

 well as jurist, and a constant writer on the theo- 

 ries and practice of agriculture, being one of the 

 editors of the New England Farmer. 



Besides personal practice and extensive read- 

 ing and writing on this science, he has treated 

 himself to extensive personal observation of the 

 practice of others, in both our own and foreign 

 lands. He visited Europe a year since with a 

 special reference to his own improvement in his 

 study and practice of agriculture. 



With a mind naturally active, vigorous, search- 



ing and discriminating — with an ambition to ren- 

 de himself personally useful to others, concur- 

 rently with a rational enjoyment of life — with an 

 acquisition of advantages in education and soci- 

 ety tending directly to the success of these en- 

 dowments and personal aims — it would be 

 strange if in attempting to produce a book rang- 

 ing within the chosen field of his chiefest labors 

 he should have failed. 



He his not failed. And no man who obtains 

 the book and reads it will feel otherwise than re- 

 joiced in the possession of it. No man owning 

 an acre of ground should be without a copy of it. 

 It is the book for distribution by our Agricultu- 

 ral Societies as premiums at their shows. Even 

 the housewife, who is privileged to learn by study 

 in doors, what the prudent husbandman, and his 

 sons and workmen, ought to understand how best 

 to execute out-doors, will find this volume both 

 readable and interesting in its lively style and 

 manifok? details. And she, too, may be left to the 

 struggles of a desolate widowhood, in the manage- 

 ment of a heritage, until her youthful sons can re- 

 lease her of the painful responsibility, and until 

 then she will need to know how to instruct those 

 sons in the judicious modes which the father would 

 have pursued if present, first with this field and 

 then with that, to secure the greatest improve- 

 ment and derive from it the greatest advantage. 

 In all that relates to redeeming lands from the 

 waste of a superabundance of waters, Judge 

 French's book will be found a faithful counsel- 

 lor in her solitude and cares. 



It is seldom I find leisure, or feel an inclina- 

 tion, to praise a book. It is generally labor 

 enough to read them thoroughly. But I deem 

 this production of Judge French so deserving, 

 and so calculated to be useful to the agricultural 

 community, I hesitate not to risk all the censures 

 which any intelligent person who may procure 

 and carefully read it, may feel disposed to bestow 

 upon me, for commending it to him. 



Frances O. J. Smith. 



Forest Home, Westbrook, July 27, 1859. 



STATE FAIHS FOR 1859. 

 We publish below a list of the various Sta's 

 and Provincial Fairs to be holden the coming 

 fall, as nearly perfect as we can make it from 

 the information in our possession. 



State. Place. Time. 



Alabama Montgomery November 15 — 18 



Califorcia Sept. 27— Oct. 6. 



Canada West Kingston September 27 — 30. 



Connecticut New Haven Octolxr 11 — 14. 



Illinois Freepv^rt September 5 — 9. 



Indiana New Albany ?ept. 2o — Oct 1. 



Iowa, Occaloosa September 27 — SO. 



Kentucky Lexington September 13—17. 



Main ■ Augusta September 20—23. 



Maryland Frederick City October 25 — 28. 



Michigan Detroit October 4 — 7. 



New ilaiapshire.. ..Dt.ver October 5 — 7. 



New .Ji-rsey Elizabeth September 13 — 16. 



New York Albany October 4—7. 



Ohio Zanesville September 20—23. 



Pennsylvania Philadelphia September 27 — 30. 



Southern Central Asricultural Society, 



Atalanta, Ga October 24—24. 



St. Loui3 Agricultural and Mechanical Association, 



St. Louis Sept. 26— Oct. 1. 



Tennessee Nashville October o — 7. 



United States Chicaco September 12 — 17. 



Vermont Burlinpton September 13 — 16 



Wisconsin Milwaukie September 26 — .34 



