36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



which, with the crumbling at the bottom, is about thirteen or 

 fourteen inches, they take a narrower spade and work in the 

 same way, taking out about a spade and a half, lapping a little 

 at each cut, and throwing the dirt over behind the other. Then 

 they are down two feet and a half, and that is usually the low- 

 est point to which their feet go. Then they do the rest of the 

 work with a scoop. They have a long, goose-necked scoop, 

 which is quite heavy and well-balanced, so that by giving it a 

 throw, it may be struck in five or six inches deep. The men 

 continually work backward so that they cut away the ground 

 on which they stand, and when they get to the full depth, the 

 finished bottom is a foot or a foot and a half below where the 

 workmen stand. This work is not difficult, and the saving is so 

 great that I am satisfied that the cubic capacity of the eartli 

 removed by a skilled workman with the proper tools, is not 

 more than one-half what a common workman would take out 

 with a common spade, in making a drain of a given length and 

 depth. 



Now, what we need is to do so much draining that the num- 

 ber of skilled workmen will increase to such an extent as to 

 create a competition, and then we can get our drains laid for 

 forty cents a rod, instead of sixty-five ; perhaps for less. One 

 man, a Canadian Irishman, who has worked for me, and who 

 had learned his trade in Canada, told me one winter he worked 

 in the public park at Hartford, and averaged 88.50 a day, right 

 by the side of the men who were regulating the price, — common 

 Irish laborers, who were ditching in the ordinary way. 



The ditch having been excavated with this scoop of which I 

 told you, is immediately graded with the same instrument. 

 As he takes out the last earth, the man carefully smooths the 

 bottom, before he gets too far back to reach it, and brings it to 

 a perfectly uniform grade. Then, when he gets through this 

 part of the work, he lays the tile in it, not by getting down into 

 the drain, and breaking his back in tryiag to get the tile in its 

 proper place, but he puts a collar on the end of the tile, and 

 then inserts a long-handled iron tile-layer into the collar and 

 lowers the pair to their place, withdraws the iron, takes up 

 another tile, lowers it, inserts it into the collar of the one 

 already in position, withdraws his iron again, and so he goes on, 

 step by step, without disturbing the regularity of the bottom. 



