The Portland daily press., 1878-09-10
AGRICULTURAL.
Agricultural Fairs.


Laying ont bfaIns
Farmers of limited experience in draining
wet land, not unfreouentIy spend an unnec
essary amount of labor and money in DIGGING
bitches where they are not needed. The in
junction s'be sure YOU are right. then 90
ahead" was never more applicable anywhere
than in the matter of LAYING out drains.
Draining is one of the most costly, as we'll as
most useful operations of farm Improvement
on those lands which need it. and because
the necessary expense required is so great, it
is of The utmost imnortapca that ne nsaess
OUTLAY be incnrred. Most farmers drain too
little. They dread to beqin iob which looks
like great undertaking. but those who do
begin without first learning from hooks or
otherwise what others already know upon
the subject. often nerform much labor and
incur considerable exnense for files or diooinc
which is entirely unnecessary. Some Kinds
of land can only be drained thoroughly by
bitches dug at distances of thirty or forty feet
apart. Clayey lands, having but slight in
chnation are Of this class.
Land, to be we'll drained, must be SO
dltched that the surplus water will be carried
on IN snort time after rainfall. Lands
which are naturally loose and porous need
FEWER drains than those which are composed
chiefly OF stiff clay, which holds the water
like basin. The lands which most need
draining in many parts of New England, are
the narrow, crooked swales which cross
almost every farm in the billy districts.
Ihese sWales are the natural beds of small
streams, perhaps too small for any visible
now except IN the spring, bat yet suffi-
clent to keep the soil too wet for cultivation,
OF ior producing any put the poorer kind OF
grasses: single spring, yielding no more
water imam one would wish, ii laying an aque-
Duct TO his buildings, may, if the water is
allowed to trickle through the soil, keep an
acre or more OF good land too wet for the
ploagn or cultlyator.
Before deciding where to dig drains In
sWae, one should hrst learn from what direc-
tion the surplus water comes, whether from
springs at the sides and along the whole
length, or only from single source at the
nead Oh tne stream. IL IS not unusual to ind
near the top OF hills considerable tracts of
ieVei, swampy land, the drainage from which,
nnding us way down the sides, produces the
swaiey land SO common in all billy districts.
NOW, II one OF these swales is made wet
wholly by water running on from above, it
would De a vase OF labor and money to cut
1t all up with drains, for single ditch rum
ming from the lower to the upper portion,
VIII as eftectually carry off the water, and
leave the land on either side in condition for
cultivation, as though a system of herring
bone drainage had been laid out and charged
Tor by the most skiful engineer in the land.
Many people seem to look upon land drain
age as something very difficult, when it is
really as simple as playing in the dirt or pad
ding in the water. Water runs down hill
If 1t runs on the top of our fields, or if it
spreads out and fills the soil full OF water to
the surface, it is in the way of cultivation.
To remove it we have only to make a chan.
mel below the surface and keep the water in
it. Water stands on the surface of our fields
because the water is lighter than the materi-