SELECTION OF A FARM. 21 



FARM ROADS. 



(Mr. C.) In selecting a farm, it is of vital importance to see that 

 the roads leading from it to the depot or market are in such con- 

 dition, or can be made so, as to be easily used by loaded wagons. 

 Many a fine farm is rendered completely worthless when the ap- 

 proaches to it are intercepted by steep hills or other obstructions to 

 the hauling of heavy loads. It is also worth noting that many diffi- 

 cult roads that are carried over hills could have been carried around 

 them on a level, without increasing their length and of course greatly 

 increasing their usefulness. Nearness to a depot, town or city of 

 course vastly enhances the value to the cultivator, not only for the 

 advantage of selling his products and getting manure, but also when 

 hired help is used ; the facilities for getting such are better, besides 

 the price paid is usually higher the farther you get away from popu- 

 lous centres. It is bad enough when harvest hands strike or abscond 

 when you are near a city, but it is disheartening in the extreme when 

 they do so when you are five or six miles from a depot, and perhaps 

 twenty miles from a town. A word here as a caution. If you engage 

 new hands from any hiring mart in New York or other large city, do 

 not trust to have them meet you at depot to go home. From the 

 moment you hire them keep possession of them, or the chances are 

 five to one that you will never see them again. Another thing: if you 

 want two men, it will be best to hire three, for the chances are more 

 than equal that one of the three will either prove worthless or run 

 away. 



DRAINAGE. 



The following short essay on draining is embodied in Peter 

 Henderson's work, " Garden and Farm Topics." We give it here, as 

 it is of general character. Although it refers more particularly to 

 areas of small extent, when used for market garden purposes, it will 

 "be found to apply equally to larger areas. The broad fact may, how- 

 ever, be asserted, that the expense of draining farm lands would in 

 many cases exceed the cost of land equally good that required no 

 draining ; and of course it is to the interest of the farmer to assure 

 himself that the farm he wishes to purchase does not require to be 

 drained artificially, but whenever, by any unfortunate circumstance, 

 possession is had of lands requiring draining, the cultivation had 

 better be abandoned, rather than attempt to till it if water is held 

 stagnant in the soil. Certain conditions of land might, however, be 

 utilized f jr pasturage without underdraining, provided that open 



