1866 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
175 
never rains but it pours.” A great portion of 
our rain, coming in such heavy showers that 
the ground cannot absorb it, passes off on the 
surface, whereas, in England, it comes so gently 
that nearly all enters the ground, and’mnst be 
carried off by under-drains. Besides, in this sec¬ 
tion, the land is frozen for three or four months, 
and when we have a sudden thaw, the snow 
melts rapidly, while the ground is still frozen 
underneath, and passes off over the surface. 
Hence the great importance of surface ditches 
in this country. In England, ■where the land is 
thoroughly underdrained, surface ditches are of 
little use, the rain coming so gradually that it 
has time to soak through the soil to the drains. 
This matter is worth looking into. I admit 
that it is a new idea to me. I have always sup¬ 
posed that, on account of our greater rainfall, 
we needed more drains than in England, and 
this may be true on farms where the damage is 
from springs, but where there is nothing but 
surface water to contend with, I think we can 
get rid of it with less trouble and expense than 
in England. We must provide the means for 
getting it off rapidly, before it enters the soil. By 
plowing the land with special reference to this 
point, an immense amount of water can be car¬ 
ried off during the thaws in winter and early 
spring, that would otherwise soak into the 
lower parts of the farm, and keep them satu¬ 
rated until the middle of May or June. The 
principal objection to this plan is, that the sur¬ 
face water carries off the ricli,fine particles of 
tlie soil, and to counteract this we should look 
out for some land that could be kept in meadow, 
and on which this surface water, from the up¬ 
land, could be used for irrigation. Of course it 
would be necessary to provide drainage for the 
low laud. Irrigation is of immense benefit on 
grass laud that is well drained, but would do 
more harm than good on land that is already 
surcharged with water. 
I do not want you to misunderstand me in 
this matter. I believe in underdraining with 
all my heart. It is the one great necessity of 
American agriculture. But we have so much 
land., and so little labor and capital, that it is de¬ 
sirable, for the time being, to get rid of all the 
water we can in the cheapest and simplest man¬ 
ner possible. I am satisfied that millions of 
dollars are annually lost by the farmers of the 
United States, for want of a little care and atten¬ 
tion to surface drainage. Last 3 'ear I had a 
crop of oats seriously injured by water. You 
know it was a very hot season. I plowed the 
field into narrow lands, with deep dead-furrows. 
It was plowed across the field. In some parts 
of the field the water lay six or eight inches 
deep in the furrows, after the oats were in ear! 
The land was an old sod, and had been summer- 
fallowed for the oats. They grew very rank 
on the crown of the ridges, but of course along 
the margins of the dead-furrows, where the 
water lay, the oats were either killed outright 
or seriously injured. Now, on this same field 
I found, the present spring, that a few furrows, 
with a little use of the hoe, would have let off 
all this surface water, and would have saved 
the crop. A span of horses and two men, be¬ 
sides myself, (say two more,) let off an immense 
quantity of water in half a day, and a few hours 
two or three days afterwards, which, when the 
ground settled, made the field dry, and pro¬ 
vided conduits for the water from subsequent 
rains. There is nothing more fascinating than 
letting off water, and every farmer should give 
his boys a holiday occasionally, to be very prof¬ 
itably spent in this delightful employment. 
There is one thing about letting off surface 
water that will surprise any one who has had 
no experience in the matter. You will fre¬ 
quently meet with a spot from which, apparent¬ 
ly, there is no fiill. But go to work and make 
a channel through the lowest land surrounding 
it, and, in nine cases out of ten, you will find 
that you can let all the water off. The fiict is, 
there is very little land that cannot be drained. 
Only go at it with this conviction, and a little 
common sense, and you will be astonished at 
the result. Remember, too, that it takes a great 
deal of heat to evaporate a gallon of water, and 
at this season of the year the land needs the full 
force of the sun to warm it. Two or three de¬ 
grees of heat in the soil, in April or May, will 
make all the difference between a good and a 
poor crop. 
A subscriber of the Agriculturist writes me 
in regard to Whiteside’s Corn and Bean Planter, 
that I mentioned last }’ear. He wants to know 
vay private opinion of its merits, and whether it 
“comes up fully to all that is claimed for it.” 
Did you ever know any machine that did ? I 
have used a good many macliines, but never yet 
found one that -u’as in all respects perfect. It is 
so with this Corn and Bean Planter. It plants 
beans as well as can be desired, but planting 
corn is a more diffleult matter. Beaus, in this 
section at least, are only cultivated one 'way. 
The rows are about 3|s feet apart, and the beans 
are dropped in the rows in hills about eighteen 
inehes apart. Now, so long as the rows are 
straight one way, it does not much matter 
whether the hills are deposited at regular dis¬ 
tances or not. An accidental variation of two 
or three inches makes no difference. A wheel, 
running over the ground, will guage this with 
sufficient accuracy, but with corn the matter is 
entirely different. We want the hills as near 
straight as possible both ways. It is an easy 
matter to make the rows straight in the direc¬ 
tion the machine goes; but the difficulty is to 
drop the seed at equal distances apart, so that 
the rows shall be straight the other way. No 
machine has yet been invented that will do this. 
It might be done on the smooth Prairie soils of 
the West, if anywhere, but I believe it is admit¬ 
ted that this work cannot be done by machinery. 
It is comparatively easy to get the right number 
of kernels in the hill, but it is exceedingly dif¬ 
ficult to deposit the seed at the exact spot where 
the hill is required. This part of the wmrk must 
be done by hand. The land is marked, and 
when the spout of the machine crosses the mark, 
a spring is touched which lets down the seed. 
A steady slow horse and a boy to drive him, 
with a man that has a quick eye and active 
fingers, who will give his whole attention to the 
work, can accomplish the object on smooth land 
■with a good degree of success. I planted about 
forty acres with it last year, and intend to use it 
again this season. With proper care I can 
plant the corn with it better than I got it planted 
two years ago by hand. A good man will of 
course plant corn better than any machine; but 
that is not the question. Good men are very 
scarce, and when you have a large field to plant 
—that must be all got ready and marked one 
way before 3 mu can commence—it is desirable 
to get it in as soon as possible. Men, boys and 
women are pressed into the service. The 
old men will tell stories and get careless, the 
3 ’oung men will want to race and make bad 
work, while the women, though better than the 
boys, sometimes talk a little more than is com¬ 
patible with accurate and rapid planting. 
I have planted twelve acres a day with this 
machine, and where the ground was not rough, 
we had no difficulty whatever in cultivating the 
corn both ways. Between planting by hand or 
planting with a maehine, I am decidedly in favor 
of the latter. But I am not certain that it is 
not just as well to drill in the seed, and give 
up the practice of planting in hills. This prac¬ 
tice is growing more in favor every 3 'ear. The 
best piece of corn I saw last season was drilled 
in—the rows being 3i feet apart, and the plants 
in the drill about nine inches apart. The ground 
was thoroughly cultivated (of course only one 
way), and was remarkably clean, though scarce¬ 
ly any hand hoeing had been given. You cer¬ 
tainly get more stalks from drilling, and I think 
more corn if the land is rich enough, and is tlwr- 
oughly cultivated. If land is poor and weedy 
better plant in hills and cultivate both ways. 
Can corn be raised at present prices ? It sells 
for only 60 cents a bushel. If you get 70 bush¬ 
els per acre it will pay. But a crop of 25 or 
30 bushels, which is much nearer the average, 
will not make any one rich. 
The truth is, that wages are now entirely be- 
3 'ond the price of produce. Farmers cannot 
pay them. The Deacon tells an anecdote of a 
Dutch fanner who lived in this neighborhood. 
He had a hired man, also a Teuton, who worked 
for him a good many years, and as money was 
scarce, he took pay in stock, land, etc. One 
year in settling up, the farmer had to give him 
the sheep, Vhen an idea seemed to strike him, 
“Hans,” said he, “I want to make a bargain 
with you. You work for me a year or two, 
till you’ve got the farm, and then you shall 
let me work for 3 'ou, till I’ve got it back again.” 
The Horticulturist has an article on the 
currant-worm. It is not the kind that is most 
troublesome in this section, though the means 
of destroying them are the same in either case. 
We have both of them here. One comes from 
a moth, and the other from a saw-fly. The lat¬ 
ter are by far the most numerous. AVe killed 
the flies last 3 'ear by the hundreds, soon after 
the bushes were leaved out. The flies at first 
seem to deposit their eggs on the leaves of the 
young suckers growing from the bottom of the 
bush. By cutting out these suckers, after the 
eggs are deposited, you can destroy an immense 
number of potential caterpillars. The suckers 
ought to be removed, in any case, for the good 
of the bushes. Many of the young shoots on 
the branches can also be cut out, and those that 
are left for future wood should be pinched to 
two or three leaves. You will be astonished 
how such treatment will increase the size of the 
fruit. The bush will be open, and there will be 
no useless growth. But you must kill the cater¬ 
pillars, or they will cut off the leaves, and the 
fruit will be worthless. If taken in time, this 
is not as much trouble as is generally supposed. 
We all need a little recreation. Take it in kill¬ 
ing the flies and the eggs. Half an hour, morn¬ 
ing and afternoon, will accomplish wonders. 
But if you wait till the eggs are batched, it is 
almost impossible to save the fruit. AVhite 
hellebore powder, dusted from a dredging box 
on the bushes in the morning, while the dew is 
on, is the best remedy yet discovered. I have 
used it for years. I would not depend on it 
alone. Kill the flies and destroy the eggs, and 
then use hellebore to finish the caterpillars that 
escape. In this wa 3 ', if your bushes have had 
good eulture, and are well pruned, you will 
have a splendid crop of fruit. 
