324 



XEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



great warriors, statesmen, and scientific men. 

 We have no laboratories except our potatoe 

 and cornfields, and no knowledge of chemis- 

 try. But we are taxed, the nation gives 

 land and the rich give money, to found col- 

 leges for rich men's boys to be educated in, 

 that they may be learned and wise. But 

 where shall the farmers look for the know- 

 ledge of chemical or other combinations of 

 materials^ make a good and cheap manure, 

 unless to our Agricultural Colleges. 'JMiey 

 have all the means, time, and money they 

 want. I think the patent manures we have 

 now on hand come too high, and they are too 

 uncertain to be profitable for farmers to use 

 to much extent. 



I think Dr. Nichols helps us some. He 

 says he can raise good crops with 2-1 loads 

 of manure to the acre. With that we can all 

 do very well. But when we attempt to in- 

 crease our crops by patent manures we gen- 

 erally fail. And perhaps it is well after all 

 that we should fail. ^Vere we able to double 

 our crops, or even to make any considerable 

 increase in their amount, would not their 

 market value decrease in just about the same 

 proportion ? Look at the facts. Last fall 

 potatoes were said to be very light, with the 

 exception of some favorable situations, and 

 people made up their minds that they nuist 

 pay a good price for them, and early in the 

 Reason they were willing to pay 70 to 75 cts., 

 but the wise heads in the villages made people 

 believe that the country was full of potatoes, 

 and down they went to 35 to 45 cts. So 

 with hay. In the fall it was worth $20 to 

 $30, per ton, and would have gone higher if 

 the winter had been an ordinary one. It is 

 so with every- thing a farmer raises. Look at 

 maple sugar. It goes from seventeen cents a 

 pound down to nothing — don't want it. There 

 appears to be no intrinsic value to anything a 

 fai-mer can raise. We want a balance-wheel 

 on the system, so that the machinery will run 

 a little more steady. 



We are often told by dealers that the mar- 

 ket price of sugar is not alFectcd by the ma- 

 ple crop as much as the Connecticut river is 

 alT'ected by a flood in some little trout brook 

 that happens to run into it. This is when 

 they have other sugar to sell. But when we 

 have sugar to sell, an abundant crop afli-cts 

 the market at once. Does this apply to other 

 trades and other kinds of busmess ? If a 

 large invoice of merchandise arrives in any of 

 our cities or towns do the farmers get to- 

 gether and congratulate themselves that now 

 goods will come down to mere nothing? Or 

 is it 80 with the manufacturer or any other 

 trade but the farmer? Then the price de- 

 manded for labor afTects us more than any 

 other class of men, for we cannot combine to 

 affect anything, and we are too poor to think 

 of retaliation. As Solomon said, "the de- 

 struction of the i)oor is their poverty." So 

 three-fourths of the farmers have neither 



money nor friends to help them out of the 

 mud and mire. p. t. 



Maiiow, N. H., May, 1871. 



For the Xew EntjUind Farmer. 

 DRAINAGE OF ^WET AND DRY LAND. 



In your weekly issue of the Farmer, April 

 29, a "Fireside Farmer" uses the following 

 words in his comnumication : "I make, and will 

 uj)holil the assertion, that there is no description 

 of arable land, however situated, or whatever 

 constituents it may have, that cannot be profit- 

 ably improved by draining." 



I have had, Mr. Editor, some experience in 

 draining some kinds of lands in a small way 

 during a period of more than forty years, not 

 in the "fireside style" however, but using the 

 tools necessary for that kind of work with my 

 own hands. I drained a piece of swamp land 

 a few years ago which was so wet and miry 

 when I commenced on it, that I found it very 

 convenient to dispense with my cowhides alto- 

 gether ; to roll up the bottom of my pants to 

 my knees, and my shirt sleeves to my elbows, 

 and not have any half-way work about it. 

 Though the labor was severe, I succeeded by 

 perseverance, in draining the water off to the 

 depth of about five feet, by means of a main 

 drain, and other cross drains. I now have a 

 mowing field that yearly produces a large crop 

 of fine English hay. I have also an abundance 

 of peat muck accessible at all times to draw 

 upon for making compost manures, where be- 

 fore was nothing but a wet, miry, barren 

 swamp. 



I have also a piece of what was once a wet 

 ui)land that I have greatly improved by laying 

 an under drain through the centre of it, con- 

 structed of small stones put in a ditch and cov- 

 ered over with soil. 



Thus far, I cordially agree with your cor- 

 respondent, and believe that all kinds of such 

 wet lands may be greatly improved by drain- 

 ing. It takes the surplus water off that fills 

 up the pores of the soil of such lands in its 

 natural state, and lets in the light, the rains, 

 the air, and the frosts, and makes the land 

 warm, light and friable, and, with proper till- 

 age, very productive. 



But when your correspondent comes to 

 other kinds of land, such for instance as I cul- 

 tivate, on which I have grown very satisfac- 

 tory crops of corn, potatoes, rice, oats, clover, 

 herdsgrass and redtop hay for a great num- 

 ber of years, and tells me that such lands can 

 be improved by draining, I cannot but doubt, 

 very seriously, the correctness of his assertion. 

 It is not in accordance with my experience in 

 the tillage of lands where you will have to dig 

 down all the way from three to fifteen or 

 twenty feet to come to standing water ; where 

 the water never stands on the surface of the 

 land except for a short time and in some de- 

 pressions, and after a rain or when the snow is 

 going oil" in the spring. In reading this part 



