1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



263 



lar, which was so wet last year that it was nearly 

 useless. The water used to come through the back 

 wall, so that in the winter before last, the doors 

 having got frozen open, the ice formed a foot or 

 two thick on the cellar bottom. 



To cure that difficulty, we commenced at the ri- 

 ver, and opened a drain to the corner of the barn, 

 then round the outside of the barn, on the upper 

 side about four feet from the cellar wall, eight feet 

 deep, or a little below the bottom of the cellar. The 

 water came in abundantly at about four or five feet 

 deep where we struck the clay, running of course 

 on the clay. In the bottom of this eight-foot ditch, 

 we laid one course of two inch drain tiles, covered 

 them with tan bark, filled the trench with sand till 

 we reached above the clay stratum, and put the clay 

 on top. From that day to this, not a drop of water, 

 I think, has crossed that drain. It runs on the clay 

 till it finds the sand, settles down at once into the 

 tiles, and so goes to the river. The tiles were laid 

 as close as possible end to end, the first one resting 

 against a brick. The oft repeated question, "How 

 does the water get into the tiles ?" finds at least a 

 practical answer here. 



And here is my drained land. Dn that side hill, 

 I planted potatoes on the 5th and 6th of June last 

 year. The soil was then too wet to plant, even 

 miry in spots. It was wet all the season, and I 

 dng perhaps sixty bushels of potatoes from an acre. 

 In the autumn we put in three parallel drains uj) 

 the slope of the hill, fifty feet apart, three feet deep 

 except on the top of the hill. 



There was an old brush drain laid six years ago, 

 five feet deep, across the slope, which dried the land 

 below it to some extent, but it discharged its water 

 on the side-hill, and drowned the land below the 

 outlet. I found that I had changed the place, but 

 kept the pain. The water might as well have come 

 out higher up, as down there. I therefore went 

 deep enough through the brow of the hill to cut off 

 the brush drain from five to six feet. We laid the 

 three parallel drains with two inch tiles, and laid a 

 main drain at right angles with them at the foot, 

 with three inch tiles, and from the hour when the 

 job was completed, the water has poured forth in a 

 large stream, sometimes, after a storm, nearly filling 

 the three inch outlet. And now we are on the 

 drained land, where it was wet in dog days last year. 

 It was plowed in November after it wa? drained. 

 There is not a drop of water visible, even on the flat 

 at the foot of the hill, where it stood in large pools 

 last June, and the soil is dry enough to plow this 

 very day. We have gained two months time to 

 work on it, if nothing more. I intend it shall be 

 manured this week, and that the manure from the 

 cellar shall be spread and plowed in, and then we 

 will see whether land thus drained will stand a 

 drought. If I could subsoil it, I should feel safe on 

 that point, but there are so many roots of those 



white oaks and maples which were cut out last fall, 

 that I must postpone the subsoiling till another sea- 

 son. 



I have faith that thorough draining will work al- 

 most a revolution in our farming. Though there 

 is much land that does not require it, yet much of 

 our most convenient land that is nearly worthless 

 now, may be transformed by this process into the 

 best tillage. If I visit Europe, as I hope to do this 

 summer, I shall learn something about draining, I 

 trust, that may profit my own country. If I could 

 have you to talk with, as I wander over foreign 

 lands, it would be an additional pleasure. How 

 much one talks daily, when with his friends. We 

 have hardly commenced our walk, and yet how the 

 conversation, which like the Irishman's reciprocity, 

 is all on one side, does spread out on paper. 



Let us go into the woods, and find a few May- 

 flowers, which are just beginning to open, and hear 

 the blue-birds and robins rejoice that winter is over. 

 By the way, I want to hear a nightingale and a sky- 

 lark sing when I get to England. There are no 

 May-flowers there, I believe, but I shall try to car- 

 ry a bouquet of them. They, like all that is sweet 

 and beautiful, are short-lived and perishable, but 

 perhaps I may, by the help of steam, show an Am- 

 erican flower to some friend there. 



I hope to write you again before I leave, which I 

 expect may be about the first of May. In the mean 

 time, success to the Farmer and its cause. 



Your Friend, H. F. French. 



U. S. AGEICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



A meeting of the Implement Committee of the 

 National Society was recently held at New York, 

 and the arrangements for the summer trial of reap- 

 ers and mowers, and the grand exhibition at Louis- 

 ville, Ky., were completed. Hon. Henry Wager, 

 of Rome, New York, formerly President of the 

 New York State Society, was added to the Com- 

 mittee. 



It was found, on reference to the appointments 

 for the reaping trials of the great Western States, 

 that the United States Society could not hold theii* 

 trial in that section of the country, as they had a£ 

 first decided to do, without conflicting with the ar- 

 rangements of the local Societies ; and they have, 

 therefore, selected this State as the next best local- 

 ity ; or, if this should not be found practicable, will 

 go to Delaware. The Secretary of the Committee 

 will go to Western New York to look out for a 

 suitable field, and make the local arrangements. 



A thorough-going practical mechanic, Mr. Joseph 

 E. Holmes, of Ohio, has been engaged to superin- 

 tend the two trials and carry out the details, so as 

 to secure a thorough and equitable examination of 

 the working qualities of the various machines. 



The Society have decided to offer a Grand Gold 

 Medal of Honor for articles of the greatest impor- 

 tance to the farmer ; one for the machine which 

 shall, in the most thorough manner and with the 

 greatest saving of time and labor, accomplish the 

 disintegration of the soil — performing the labor of 



