Stone drains, including mains 702 rods Tile drains (two inches, or larger) 1043 " ---- In all 1745 " or, about five and one-half miles, laying dry, _satisfactorily_, about thirty-five acres. The character and extent of the work will better appear by reference to the plan of the farm which I send with this for your inspection. The earlier portion was fairly described by the Committee of the Bangor Hort. Soc.--(See Report, for 1856, of the Maine Board of Agriculture.) It was far too costly, as usual in works of a novel character conducted without practical knowledge. No part of my draining, even that of this season, has been done so cheaply as it ought to be done in Maine, and will be done when tiles can be bought at fair prices near at hand. I call your attention particularly to this, because the magnitude of the cost, as I represent it, ought not to be taken as a necessary average, or standard outlay per acre, by any one contemplating similar improvement, when almost any farmer can accomplish it equally well at far less cost. My unnecessary expenditures will not have been in vain, if they serve as a finger-post to point others in a profitable way. My land had upon its surface, and mingled in its super soil, a large quantity of stones, various in size, from the huge boulders, requiring several blasts of powder to reduce them to movable size, to the rubble stones which were shoveled from the cart into the drains. To make clean fields all these had to be removed, besides the many "heaps" which had been accumulated by the industry of my predecessors. A tile-drain needs no addition of stone above the pipe; indeed, the stone may be a positive injury, as harboring field vermin, or, if allowed to come within two feet of the surface, as obstructing deep tillage, and favoring the access of particles of soil upon or into the tile with the rapid access of water which they promote. Carefully placed to the depth of six or eight inches in a four-foot drain, quite small stones are, perhaps, useful, and they certainly facilitate the drawing of water from the surface. Such was, and still is, with many, the prescribed method of best drainage in Scotland, and some parts of England. The increased cost of adding the stone above the tile is obvious; and when the width of that drain is enlarged to receive them, the cost is materially enhanced. Yet such has been my practice, at first, under the impression of its necessity, and all the time from a desire to put to use, and out of sight, the small stones with which I was favored in such abundance. The entire cost of moving, and bringing more than 2,500 heavy loads of stone, is included in the