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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April 



may be suggested by longer experience, or by the 

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LEGISLATIVE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



[Reported fob the N. E. Farmer, by Thomas Bradley.] 



There was a very good attendance at the ninth 

 meeting of the Legislative Agricultural Society, 

 held in the Representatives' Hall on Monday 

 evening. The meeting was called to order by 

 Col. Stone, who introduced Judge French, of 

 Cambridge, as the Chairman of the evening. 



On taking the chair, Judge French announced 

 as the subject for discussion, ^^Under-Draining." 

 He said he had not proposed to deliver a lecture 

 on the subject, but to make a few introductory 

 general remarks. It was not the object of the 

 meeting to go into a systematic discussion of the 

 question of draining, as he understood, as this 

 would occupy not only days but weeks, as the 

 best tools, the nature of the land, and other im- 

 portant matters contingent on a thorough under- 

 standing of the subject, would necessarily have to 

 be each and all considered. 



He would speak of draining wet lands, which 

 embraced a great proportion of our uplands, as 

 well as lowlands. He said he was not one who 

 believed that all lands would be improved by 

 draining, but he thought that none would be in- 

 jured, and the question to be considered by every 

 farmer, in the first place, was, Will it pay ? and 

 is it a better investment than others I can make ? 

 In four feet of soil, the speaker said, w^as re- 

 tained two feet of water, and anything more than 

 this would have to be carried off" by drainage. 



The speaker then alluded to the swamps and 

 meadows in Massachusetts, and took occasion to 

 say that he believed the Yankee meaning of the 

 word meadow was correct, and that the English 

 meaning of mowing lands was incorrect. He did 

 not know the quantity we had here, as he had 

 never seen it stated, but in Indiana, he learned 

 from Gov. Wright, there were 3,000,000 acres, 

 and in the United States, prior to 1857, 60,000,000 

 had been taken by the several States under the 

 law of Congress. He had seen in a Massachu- 



setts Legislative document of 1860 that there 

 were 156,000 or more acres of meadow land, and 

 40,000 acres of salt marsh, on all of which the 

 average crop was not more than three-fourths of 

 a ton to the acre, and in this of course were not 

 included the swamps covered with wood, which 

 would be reckoned as woodland, nor those cov- 

 ered with water. All reports, said he, agree in 

 stating that these lands, when properly treated, 

 are the best and most productive in the State, as 

 the collecting of leaves on them, the washings 

 from the higher lands, and other causes, make 

 them particularly fertile. 



He had supposed that every one knew the val- 

 ue of such lands as these, until that day he had 

 heard a man question the utility of being at any 

 expense to reclaim them, but he now thought the 

 man was ignorant, and he wanted what a great 

 many of our farmers lacked — knowledge. The 

 only question, said Mr. French, is whether it will 

 pay to reclaim the land, and in by far the greater 

 portion of lands he felt sure it would. 



We want, said the speaker, to employ more 

 capital and more knowledge, and the nations 

 which excel us in agriculture do this, and it is 

 the secret of their success. He spoke to farmers 

 without flattering them, and he thought it was 

 due to every man to speak in this way. It is not 

 true, said he, that the farmers of our country have 

 no capital to invest, — the banks, railroad and other 

 corporations show that they have ; but as soon as 

 a farmer gets a little money, he is too much in the 

 habit of going to invest it in this manner, than to 

 put it on his farm, where he would always have it. 



Judge French said that he learned from a re- 

 port of Mr. Goodale, Secretary to the Maine 

 Board of Agriculture, (and this he instanced to 

 show that there the farmers are not poor,) that 

 the fences in Maine have cost the farmers 

 $25,000,000, while the fences to the highways 

 alone have cost the State $3,000,000. 



There is not knowledge enough in Massachu- 

 setts, said he, to make farming profitable, but by 

 this he did not wish it to be understood that we 

 had not an excellent school system and means of 

 acquiring learning, but that our farmers were 

 lacking in the practical knowledge of their busi- 

 ness, so as to enable them to make the most from 

 their lands. Twenty-eight and a half bushels of 

 wheat is the average product in England, while 

 here the highest average of any State, except Cal- 

 ifornia, is only 16, and that in Massachusetts 

 The reason of this is that England has more cap- 

 ital and more labor, and knows how to use it. He 

 spoke of the system of farming in England, say- 

 ing that the farmer there directed only, and was 

 thoroughly acquainted with his business, while 

 here the farmer furnished head and hands both. 

 He supposed the Southern planters did their 



