l8 NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



The plan adopted was to lay a drain from the river inland 

 for one hundred rods. This was to be constructed of green, 

 white pine, two-inch planks, free of sapwood. It was to be 

 , twelve inches wide and eight inches high on the inside, afford- 

 ing an interior section of ninety-six square inches. 1 Beyond this 

 an existing open drain was to be followed onwards to the 

 pond. 2 



An excavation, fourteen and a half feet deep, five feet wide 

 at the top, and three at the bottom, was commenced at the river 

 bank in September, 1853, when the river was at its lowest 

 stage. 



The plank conduit, made in sections of eight feet each, was 

 placed in position as the excavation progressed. These inter- 

 locked at the ends, and were substantially water tight when 

 covered. 



It was found upon trial that an ordinary shoveller could throw 

 dirt upon the bank to a height of about six feet, and the work 

 was commenced with an initial opening of that depth. Deeper 

 excavations were next sunk in short cuts about ten feet long, 

 and much of the dirt removed therefrom was thrown back- 

 wards upon the successive conduit sections as they were put in 

 place, so that only a portion of the earth moved was thrown 

 outside the ditch. The ground gradually fell off as the excava- 

 tion was carried inland, and at the end of the first fifty rods its 

 original depth of fourteen feet and a half was reduced to ten. At 

 this point the work was suspended for a time. Subsequently 

 resumed, another fifty rods of similar construction was laid, in 

 excavations varying in depth from two feet to ten. Hence, on- 

 ward to the pond, the old open ditch was deepened as found 

 necessary, and for about eighty rods its bottom was 

 floored with boards. These, constantly covered with water, 



J Glazed Akron pipes were not then in use, and it was assumed that heart 

 white pine, kept at a temperature nearly uniform and always wet, would not 

 decay. Experience has thus far sustained this assumption and this drain, 

 worn somewhat by the friction of the water passing through it, seems as sound 

 as when first laid, forty-two years ago. 



2 The experiment may have been a rash one, as underdraining was then very 

 imperfectly understood and but little practised in New Hampshire. Mr. Will- 

 iam Connor and Judge Henry F. French, of Exeter, were the only persons 

 within the writer's knowledge who had then done any systematic drainage in 

 this state. 



