FARM EXPERIENCE. 245 



the making of macliines which will dig ditches far more 

 cheaply than they can be dug now. I have s^en a great many 

 ditch-digging machines in tlie course of my Ufe, many of wliich 

 worked exceedingly well. With one pair of horses, the ma- 

 chine would work out the ground very rapidly indeed. But 

 the difficulty with them all has been, that they left an uneven 

 bottom. The first condition of a good ditch is, that the bot- 

 tom shall be left undisturbed, and be perfectly smooth, and 

 these machines have failed because they left the bottom irreg- 

 ular. Three years ago, I experimented with a machine made 

 by a man in Ohio, which was built upon entirely different 

 principles from any which I had ever seen. In my hands, it 

 was a most perfect success. The only reason I do not com- 

 mend it to you positively is, that I have never heard of the 

 machine since. 



Dr. Riggs. I use a machine which I got up myself. With 

 a yoke of oxen and two men, I can raise all the earth that 

 any thirty men can throw out after me ; but I have not got 

 to tliat point, that my machine will throw out the dirt. 



Mr. Day. I take out the depth that I can plow, perhaps 

 six or eight inches, and then drop in a sub-soil plow, using a 

 long yoke, so that my cattle can walk each side of the ditch, 

 and by lengthening the chain, I can drop down eighteen inches 

 further, — that is as low as I can go, — and pass up and down 

 the ditch, so as to loosen the earth. I can make as perfect a 

 ditch in that way as the Doctor does with his machine. I 

 have to make quite a wide ditch. 



Mr. Gold. I have practiced underdraining for twenty 

 years or more, mostly using stone drains, and largely for the 

 purpose of disposing of the stone. I have been moderately 

 successful ; yet perhaps it may be as profitable to refer to my 

 partial failures as to my successes. My stone drains have 

 failed, in part, from my anxiety to use up stone too freely ; 

 I liave used too large stones, and filled the drains too full 

 with stones. I have more recently, and I think with advan- 

 tage, used tile. Although I had to obtain the tile from Albany, 

 at a large expense for freight, yet I saved so much in the ex- 

 pense of digging in the exceedingly hard and tenacious hard- 



