ANNUAL REPORT OF STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 31 
conclusions arrived at by the very intelligent farmers who were present in 
large numbers. 
1. The principal benefit to be secured to the farmer, by uuderdraining, 
lies in the more thorough tillage he is able to give his arable land; yet 
instances are not wanting, where pasture lands are very profitably improved 
from what may be denominated the primary or simple method of draining. 
2. In the discussion of this subject, soils are properly divided into those 
which produced, to a greater or less extent, aquatic, and those which bear 
the cultivated grasses; the former being nearly destitute of nitrogen, or the 
flesh-forming principle. 
3. As the supply of nitrogen for plants is mostly derived from the atmos¬ 
phere, soils not possessing the natural or artificial means of drainage for 
the surface water, or that welling up from the stratified subsoils, are una¬ 
ble to allow the atmospheric air to circulate in them, and cannot absorb 
any portion of its nitrogen, and are generally regarded as barren or waste 
land. 
4. The average annual fall of water in the State of New York, in the 
form of rain and snow, is within a fraction of three (3) feet, of which only 
one twenty-fourth (1.24) is appropriated by plants; seven-twelfths (7.12) 
pass off by evaporation, and three-eighths (3.8) are carried away by water¬ 
courses, either open or moving beneath the earth’s surface. 
5. Where these water-courses are deficient in number, imperfect in flow, 
or obstructed in their outlet, the first essay of the drainer is to remedy 
these defects; and where the adjacent land is porous in its character, as in 
the case where sandy particles predominate, the simple ditch, judiciousl}' 
located, is sufficient to provide for the escape of all surplus water. 
6. Where, in addition to the annual supply from the skies, the soil is 
saturated with water boiling up from the stratified subsoil, or underlying or 
adjacent rocks, it is then expedient, by boring, to conduct the excess of this 
supply to the main ditch directly, or by lateral drains leading into it. 
All these methods may be classed under the primary method of drainage. 
7. In soils deficient in, or wholly deprived of, sandy or porous constitu¬ 
ents, the escape of the twenty-three twenty-fourths (23.24) of the rain and 
snow fall is retarded, the average temperature of the soil is lowered by six 
and a half degrees (6-1°) of Fahrenheit’s scale, equal to seven degrees (7°) 
of higher latitude, and the water forced up from the fissures of adjacent 
stratifications (if any there be,) make the receipts of a more thorough sys¬ 
tem of drainage, which may be styled the secondary or complex method. 
8. In proportion to the density and tenacity of the soil, ditches must 
be dug at intervals varying from twenty-five (25) to fifty (50) feet apart; 
and in order that the plowing and laying down of the land may be effec¬ 
tive, the ditches must be covered; and this has inaugurated the system of 
tile draining, at an expense of from twenty ($20) to forty ($40) dollars per 
acre, rendering land, previously of but little value, capable of the highest 
production. 
9. This, however, can never be fully realized, unless the draining is fol¬ 
lowed by the deepest plowing, not only.by the ordinary, but by the sub¬ 
soil plow, and also by a system of high manuring, which shall supply not 
only nitrogenous manures, and those rich in the mineral food of plants, but 
