PROCEEDnXGS OF THE FaRMERS' ClUB. ■ 785 



Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal. Belgium, Holland, Denmark, 

 Bremen, Hamburg, and Italy. These manufacturing countries of 

 Europe are those from which the United States import most of their 

 foreign manufactures and luxuries for consumption, leaving a balance 

 of trade in their favor, which state of trade should be reversed in 

 order to malce our country prosperous and happy. 



Drainage. 

 Mr. Thomas Johnson Perry, Ohio. — I have a farm of 120 acres, 

 formerly covered with timber, and much of it under water half the 

 year. I have cut off the timber with my own hands. I have also 

 made 1,200 rods of open ditches, in depth from two to three and one- 

 half feet, and from eight to twelve feet wide at top. I use a plow 

 and scraper, taking the earth into the field, filling up all low places. 

 1 have underdrained with brush ; that did no good — the crabs shut 

 it up. I then tried timber, laying a rail at each side of my ditch, 

 then covering with oak-heading two feet long and two inches thick, 

 laid crosswise. This answers a very good purpose as long as it will last 

 — about twenty years in drains that are dry half the time ; when there 

 is water all the time it would last longer. I am now using tile 

 from two to five inches inside of the pipe. I am putting them down 

 from two to five feet deep. At the bottom of my drain I cut a groove 

 the size of ray tile. I then commence at the upper end of my drain 

 to lay tile, pressing them down into the groove. I choose a time 

 when there is water in the ground. I put a good hard brick at the 

 end of the first tile, pressing each one down until the water will pass 

 through, clearing out all loose earth that may fall in with a tool made 

 for that purpose. My experience is that land that is not worth five 

 dollars per acre for farming purposes without being drained, is worth 

 sixty dollars after having been thoroughly drained. It will cost about 

 twenty dollars per acre to drain land here. We pay $1.25 per 100 

 feet for two-inch tile, $2.10 for three-inch, three dollars for four inch, 

 four dollars for five-inch, $4.50 for six inch. I have raised 120 bushels 

 (ears), of good sound corn per acre, twenty-seven bushels of wheat, 

 sixty bushels of oats, and this on land which would not do anything 

 without drainage. 



Currants. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller distributed some cuttings of the large cherrj 

 currant, and said : The best time to make cherry cuttings is in the 

 autumn, soon after the leaves fall, I cut the stems into sections six 



[Inst.] 50 



