DIGGING AND DIRECTION OF DRAINS. 33 



adjacent ground, a tile 1^ inches in diameter is sufficient to 

 make it entirely dry. Not only that, but very rarely will more 

 than half of that be filled. Tiles 1| inches in diameter can be 

 bought for 2\ cents a foot, while tiles three inches in diameter 

 cost three times as much, including the expense of transpor- 

 tation to the land. Here is a difference at once, of at least $20 

 an acre, in draining an ordinary field. 



Then in the matter of digging. Farmers think they must 

 begin by ploughing as deep as they can. A man thinks he has 

 made a great advance if he can plough down a foot and a half 

 deep, and throw all that depth of dirt out by horse power. 

 Then the man who digs the drain must have a wide shovel, and 

 there must be room for him to stand in, and to change his 

 position, if he gets tired, and it results in throwing out great 

 blocks of earth, when perhaps little slices would answer the 

 purpose ; throwing out three or four times as much as is nec- 

 essary, and at a very great cost. The spade leaves a clean, firm 

 bank. The plough a ragged and crumbling one. 



Another point where failure is often made is, in the direction 

 that is given to drains. That seems to be a thing in which the 

 human mind is most perversely set in the wrong direction. 

 Ninety-nine out of a hundred, even of those who have given 

 some thought to the subject, if asked to lay the drains on a piece 

 of land, will run them diagonally down the hill so as to catch 

 the water, as they suppose, as it comes down, and carry it off. 

 That is exactly wrong, for the reason that the drains that are 

 to be laid are only pipes that leak at the joints. The water gets 

 into them by coming in at the joints. They are as open on the 

 lower side as they are on the upper side ; the water leaks in at 

 one joint, runs along to the next, and then perhaps leaks out. 

 The object should be to get it into the pipe, and offer it an induce- 

 ment to go out, give it no chance to run in any other direction. 

 It is as impossible to catch the water by laying a drain along a 

 side hill, as it is to catch the water running down a piazza roof 

 by setting up a loose-fitting board ; it will run along the board, 

 until it finds a chance to get under it, and then it will run on 

 down the roof. A drain should be run directly up and down 

 the slope, so that the moment the water gets into it, it will 

 have no course but to follow it to the end. That would be a 

 very simple thing, if all lands sloped in one direction ; if there 

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