TILE DRAINAGE. 141 



CONCLUSION. 



Before closing I wish to say that I have visited friend 

 Chamberlain at different times during his work. lie is not 

 very far from friend Terry, so when I go to see one I take in 

 the other also. I have seen that beautiful orchard, and no- 

 ticed the great difference in the trees that are on the tile- 

 drained land, and I also saw that Baldwin apple-tree, page 

 49, just before they were going to gather the fruit. It was 

 a sight, Ftell you, and I never in my life before saw such a 

 lot of beautiful, round, smooth, perfect apples as I saw at 

 friend Chamberlain's. One of the most interesting sights to 

 me was the item mentioned and illustrated on pp. 44, 45, 46 ; 

 namely, the idea that tiles helped the crops but hindered the 

 weeds. When I was first told it, I felt like making light of 

 friend Chamberlain's enthusiasm, which I thought then was 

 running away with him. He took us first where we saw a 

 heavy growth of clover and timothy, with no weeds or plan- 

 tain. Then we looked at the ground that had not yet been 

 tiled, and I soon took in the state of affairs. There are cer- 

 tain kinds of weeds that we expect to see appear on poor, 

 hard, dry ground. In fact, they are seldom seen elsewhere. 

 There is but little grass or clover or any thing else on such 

 ground, and I had always supposed that the rank, hardy 

 weeds had killed out the grass. If I am correct, however, 

 the real state of affairs is this : The excessive wetness first 

 kills out the timothy and clover in the same way it killed 

 that cherry-tree and our evergreens. When the timothy and 

 clover are out of the way, the hardy weeds that can stand 

 the wet come in and cover the ground ; therefore we have a 

 rational and reasonable explanation given for the fact that 

 we get rid of weeds by thoroughly underdraining our land. 



This book, like the various books written by friend Terry, 

 is not theory or book farming, like some books that have been 

 written on agriculture, for it is only a description of what I 

 have seen repeatedly, and what you too, dear reader, may see 



