TRAXS ACTIONS. 261 



readily, as sand or gravel, or in a clay soil, the soil top. 

 It is perhaps possible with pure clay puddled in, to stop 

 Trater from getting into the tiles, and no person of common 

 judgment would put pure wet clay immediately on to the 

 tiles. Finally, fill the trenches and make all level, making 

 allowance for what the earth over the drains may settle. 

 The first question always asked by a novice in the art of 

 draining with tiles, is. 



How does the Water get into the Tiles 1 — Tlie answer 

 is, " it gets in at the joints and through the pores of the 

 burnt clay. Professor Mapes says, that if you cork up 

 both ends of a common drain tile, and put it under water 

 empty, it will fill by water passing through the pores in 

 two minutes. A Scotchman with whom I recently con- 

 versed, who is familiar with the practical operations of tile 

 draining, said that you might stop one end of a tile, and 

 pour in a quart of water every day in the year, and it 

 would all go through. There need be no fear on this point. 

 In any soil but pure clay, you cannot keep the water out of 

 the tiles, and it is very rarely that clay is found that cannot 

 be thoroughly drained with them. This is no new business, 

 and there is no need of any doubt about the facts as to the 

 operation of tile draining. 



Mr. Colman states that the Duke of Portland has com- 

 pleted on his immense estates seven thousand miles of 

 drains ; and that the Duke of Bedford had made two hun- 

 dred miles of drains on his estates in one year ! Tiles 

 have been used extensively in parts of New York, and to 

 some extent in New England, but if evidence of their utility 

 is wanted, an experiment may be referred to, tried by a 

 neighbor of mine in Exeter, a first-rate farmer and most 

 reliable man. 



Experiment by Mr. William Conner, of Exeter. Mr. 

 Conner procured four thousand drain tiles from Albany, 

 most of them two inch, a few larger, and laid the greater 

 part of them in 1855. Ilis laud is a hill side of easy de- 



