162 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



In draining, Mr. Johnston says : " The first important point 

 is to secure a sufficient outlet. To secure this, I dug almost a 

 canal through a part of a neighbor's farm. The main drains 

 should be from four to six inches deeper than the drains emp- 

 tying into them ; not with abrupt shoulders, but levelled up so 

 that the four or six inches rise may take place gradually in the 

 length of two tiles, with the natural drains, to have a little 

 curve near the end to discharge a little down stream in the 

 main drain. The drains on my farm are from two feet six 

 inches to three feet deep." 



" My drains are from twenty-seven to forty-five feet apart, 

 generally thirty-three feet. Nothing but thorough draining 

 will pay, and I am convinced that money cannot be better 

 expended in any way, than in draining the county of Seneca," 

 a beautiful agricultural county lying between Cayuga lake on 

 the east, and Seneca lake on the west. 



" A few years since when the midge destroyed most of the 

 wheat of six of my neighbors whose farms join mine, no one 

 of them harvested over seven bushels per acre, while some 

 did not get that, yet my wheat fields produced between twenty- 

 eight and twenty-nine bushels per acre. The main cause of 

 this difference was in the fact that my land was drained, and 

 theirs was not. Since that my neighbors have all drained 

 more or less, some of them having done so very extensively. 

 True, it will not do every thing. Manure must be applied to 

 keep up the fertility of the soil." 



He recommends that every farmer of his county should make 

 the experiment of thoroughly draining a little, if it be but an 

 acre, and wait for the result, and "I am convinced," says Mr. 

 Johnston, " he will require no urging to drain more." 



" I began to drain under unfavorable circumstances. First, 

 want of funds, next the tiles cost double what they do now, 

 and last, but not least, public opinion was against me. I was 

 taunted by the inquiry, ' Are you going to put crockery all 

 over your farm ? ' Some told me that ' my farm was rather too 

 dry if any thing ; others hinted that ' they had known some 

 men drain and otherwise improve their lands so that they lost 

 them.' Even a Judge Cheever and a Professor Emmons, in a 

 public discussion on agriculture, thought it might be practicable 

 to expend from $20 to 124 an acre on draining in the humid 



