J357.] Chronides of a Clay Farm. 439 



proi)er attention paid to the leveling of the bottom of a drain, and 

 the laying of the tiles in that continuous line, where one single 

 depression or irregularity, by collecting the water at that spot ycav 

 after year, tends toward the eventual stoppage of the whole drain, 

 through two distinct causes, and softening of the foundation under- 

 neath the sole, or tile flange, and the deposit of soil inside the tile 

 from the water collected at the spot, and standing there after the 

 rest had run off. Every depression, however slight, is constantly- 

 doing the mischief in every drain where the fall is but trifling ; and 

 if to the two consequences above mentioned, we may add the decom- 

 position of the tile itself by the action of water long stagnant within 

 it, we may deduce that every tile-drain laid with these imperfections 

 in the finishing of the bottom, has a tendency toward obliteration, 

 out of all reasonable proportion with that of a well-burnt tile laid 

 on a perfectly even inclination, which, humanly speaking, may be 

 called a permanent thing. An open ditch cut by the most skillful 

 workman, in the summer, affords the best illustration of this under- 

 ground mischief. Nothing can look smoother and more even than 

 the bottom, until that uncompromising test of accurate levels, the 

 water, makes its appearance : all on a sudden the whole scene is 

 changed; the eye-accredited level vanishes as if some earthquake 

 had taken place : here there is a gravelly scokv, along which the 

 stream rushes in a thousand little angry-looking ripples ; there it 

 hangs and looks as dull and heavy as if it had given up running at 

 all, as a useless waste of energy ; in another place a few dead leaves 

 or sticks, or a morsel of soil broken from the side, dams back the 

 water for a considerable distance, occasioning a deposit of soil along 

 the whole reach, greater in proportion to the quantity and the mud- 

 diness of the water detained. All this shows the paramount import- 

 ance of perfect evenness in the bed on which the tiles are laid. 

 (^T he worst-laid tile is tlie measure of the goodness and permanence of 

 the whole drain, just as the weakest link of a chain is the measure 

 of its strength.) 



But this of course was all theory, and theory of course was all 

 nonsense : my practical head-drainer was quite of a different way 

 of thinking, as his modus operandi will exhibit. The morning after 

 he had commenced operations, I found him hard at work cutting a 

 drain, about eighteen inches deep, laying in the tiles one hy one and 

 filling the earth in over them as he loent ! 

 . The field I had begun upon was very large and very flat, and in 



