420 Transactions of the American Institute. 



full process ; also, information concerning the sale of it, where, and 

 for how ninch per barrel, and if whisky barrels will do for putting 

 it in? " 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — I think he would find it to his advantage to dry 

 them. If he should make them into brandy he Avould be lending 

 assistance to a cause to which he might not care to lend assistance. 

 In the New York market next winter they m' ill bring from forty cents 

 to seventy-five cents per pound. Kiln-drying is the best process, but we 

 must expect a four-fold shrinkage. I have often had crops of black- 

 berries that I would not put in the market which Isold at a fair profit 

 wben dried. The crop is large everywhere, and we should be glad 

 if some lady who makes a prime article of blackberry cordial would 

 forward us her recipe. 



DKAmiXG. 



Mr. James Sackett, of Avon, X, Y, — I see, by reports of the Gth 

 instant, a communication from W. G. Roberts, asking about laying 

 tiles eighteen inches deep, and he was advised to lay them. I have 

 been putting in drains made of two boards, six inches wide and six 

 or eight feet long, leveled oflT and nailed together on one edge, and 

 spread apart four inches at the other, laid on a piece of board a foot 

 long at the joints where the bottom of a ditch is hard, and whole 

 length where it is soft; have used oak and hemlock. The cost of 

 hemlock is not more than clay tile. I took up an old drain last sum- 

 mer that had played out three or four years ago; was put down 

 twelve years ago, two and one-half feet deep ; tile were all crumbled 

 to pieces and rotten, and the boards under the tile looked as good as 

 when put down. Have streams running throiigh the board tiles that 

 will more than fill a two-inch clay tile. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — There are drains of the kind described at the 

 insane asylum at TJtica, three and a half feet deep, which were put 

 down more than thirty years ago. That is a deep clay soil. Of 

 course, in sandy soil it would be necessary to go, say, five feet down, 

 in order to make them last as well. 



Mr. G. Roberts, Racine, Wis. — I shall be very much obliged if the 

 Club will inform me and others if tile, properly burned and made of 

 proper clay, is subject to crumble and decay. I am using Milwaukie 

 tile. 



Prof. James A. Whitney says, in answer. — The best admixture of 

 clay and sand for making a perfect tile is not easy to hit upon. A 

 tile should be somewhat porous, and also tough. Those of a bright 



