AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY ADDRESSES. 
1! 
manry of these bold mountain regions, and on our 
return to the city, wrote a short sketch of “ Moun¬ 
tain Farming,” see vol. v., page 301, of the Agricul¬ 
turist. By reference to this article, it will be seen 
that we agree entirely with Mr. Johnson in the sug¬ 
gestions above. The hilly regions of these coun¬ 
ties ought to have been found covered with 
hardy Galloway cattle, Southdown, and fine- 
wooled sheep, and fruit trees. With the products 
of these, the farmers would have been so wealthy 
that they would never have thought of anti-rent 
meetings • hut would have been able and willing to 
have become the owners in fee-simple of the soil 
they occupied. 
We had scarce finished writing the above, when 
we received the address delivered before the Hart¬ 
ford County Agricultural Society of Connecticut, in 
October last, by our excellent friend, Professor John 
P. Norton, of Yale College. This also is an ad¬ 
mirable thing in its way. But instead of choosing 
a variety of subjects, Mr. Norton has confined him¬ 
self to one, viz. draining. This is a highly impor¬ 
tant subject, and one which unfortunately has re¬ 
ceived little attention at the hands of the American 
farmer. 
To show its great value, Mr. N. says:—“ In 1846, 
l visited the farm of Mr. Dudgeon, of Spylaw, at 
Kelso, Scotland, near the English border. The sur¬ 
face soil was stiff, and the subsoil almost impervi¬ 
ous to water. He had then drained about 90J 
acres, and the length of drains was nearly 300 
miles! His landlords defrayed about half of the ex¬ 
pense. He had a tile work which turned out from 
400,000 to 500,000 tiles in a year, but not sufficient 
to supply his wants. He was then in the begin¬ 
ning of a new nineteen-year lease, and was drain¬ 
ing as fast as possible, in order to reap the utmost 
advantage. The drains immediately raised the 
value of his land from a rent of $2.50 per acre, to 
one of $6.50. Owing to their ameliorating and 
drying influence, he had fine crops of turnips on 
stiff clays where it had never before been thought 
possible to grow them. The system of draining 
across the slopes had been tried on this farm, but 
abandoned as ineffectual, in comparison with Smith 
of Deanston’s method. He was even going over 
those fields anew; at the time of my visit workmen 
were cutting straight down one of the slopes, across 
the old drains. Mr. Le Roy, a proprietor in the same 
neighborhood, had put in about 250 miles of drains 
on his own estate, thereby increasing the rent of 
many of his farms from $5.00 to $14.00 per acre. 
These were men of large property, but instances of 
equal or even greater success on a small scale, are 
frequent in many districts. In travelling over an 
unusually large portion of Great Britain, and hear¬ 
ing the experience of a very great number of prac¬ 
tical men, I never met one who was disappointed in 
the result of efficient, thorough draining.” 
“ The manner of carrying out improvements, and 
the extent to which they are at .once adopted, must 
necessarily be very different in this country and in 
England. Our farmers are mostly proprietors of 
moderate means, each managing his own land. We 
have no tenants who are willing to pay eight or 
ten thousand dollars of annual rent, when that sum 
would purchase a superb estate in the West. Our 
farming being on so much smaller a scale, the im¬ 
provements must be more gradually perfected. They 
may, however, and in this instance ought to be, of 
a similar character. The remedy for wet cold land, 
is the same here as there, and there are few of our 
farmers who could not in the course of each year, 
find time to accomplish something; even without 
increasing, to any material extent, their usual force. 
Half an acre or an acre of drains might surely be 
put in annually on almost any farm, and I have 
little doubt that he who commenced by one acre a 
year, would not long be contented without doing 
more.” 
In order to show how easily draining may be done, 
Mr. Norton gives a sketch of the recently improved 
pipe. He says:—“At present however, another 
form of tile is coming into general favor. It is a 
simple round pipe, made in lengths like the first, 
and for the cross drains of not more than an inch 
and a half in the diameter of the bore. These can 
be made much cheaper than the other kind, as they 
are smaller, and all in one piece. They are not 
more than half the weight of the old fashioned tile 
and sole, and therefore an additional saving is ef¬ 
fected on the transportation. The trench for their 
reception is also much smaller, being at the top just 
wide enough to allow the trencher to work, and cut 
at the bottom with a narrow tool, to exactly the 
proper size for the reception of the pipe. The 
pieces are simply laid end to end, and wedged with 
small stones when necessary. The water finds its 
way in at the joints. Many have expressed doubts 
as 1o the operation of these drains, thinking that 
water would scarcely penetrate into so small a chan¬ 
nel, through such minute apertures. No difficulty 
has been experienced in any case. One gentleman 
residing in the south of England, who has employed 
these small pipe tiles in draining exceedingly stiff 
clays, laying them at the depth of three feet, and ram 
ming the clay hard down : offered a premium of £100 
[$500] to any person who would keep the water 
out of them. These tiles, of both varieties, are 
made by machinery. The clay is worked in an or¬ 
dinary pug mill, such as is used in brick making, 
care being taken that no stones are present; it is 
then forced through a die of a circular or horse-shoe 
shape, according to the kind of tile intended to be 
made. It passes through in a continuous stream, 
which is cut off into the proper lengths by hand, or 
by a little apparatus connected with the machine. 
After drying sufficiently they are burned in a kiln.. 
By the use of machines, and hy manufacturing on 
a large scale, the price of tiles has been brought 
very low. In some parts of England the small 
round pipes now cost only ten shillings or $2.50 
per thousand, each tile being fourteen inches in 
length. This would make them only about four 
cents per rod. There is no doubt, that, should the 
demand be great they may soon be obtained .here at 
as low rates. I hope to receive in the course of a 
few weeks such information from one of my Scotch 
friends, as will enable me either to give directions 
for the making of the best tile machine, in this coun¬ 
try, or for the importation of a small one from Eng¬ 
land as a model. If the farmers only call for them; 
in great quantity, I have full confidence that our. 
American mechanics will .soon improve upon the : 
best English model that can be obtained. Even ati 
$5.00 per thousand, or e’ght cents per rod, the 'em— 
