DRAINAGE. 169 
ment may beso placed that for every inch rise per hundred feet the plumb- 
bob will stand one mark further back. This implement can be easily 
made and marked on a level fioor, and is handierthan one shown at figure 
A. These implements are drawn up-grade, as the digging is usually begun 
at the outlet. ‘ 
COST OF TILE DRAINS. 
Owing to the few tiles needed by most fields where parts are wet, the 
cost per acre is slight. The cost of opening the ditch, of laying the tiles, 
and of filling is, with our prices for labor, ten cents per rod for each foot 
in depth. For an average of three and one-half feet deep we thus have 
35 cents per rod forlabor. The tiles are as yet abnormally high in Minne- 
sota. There is not at present a single factory in operation, so far as we 
know. In Iowa and lllinois, where several factories in one county reduce 
the price nearly to cost, twelve to thirteen dollars per thousand feet of 
three-inch tiles has been reached. At this price, the drains cost 55 to 75 
cents per rod according to the size of tiles used. Here the cost is five to 
ten cents more per rod, to pay for freights on tiles from southern Wiscon- 
sin, or adjacent parts of Iowa and Illinois. Before long the making of 
tiles will be a feature in many of our towns, and much land will then grow 
two blades of grass where now only one grows. 
MAKING THE DITCH, 
While good drains can be made with stones, boards and poles, there is 
nothing so permanent, and in the long run so cheap as tiles. When prop- 
erly laid, with a uniform fall, there is little danger of their being injured 
by freezing. 
Directions: Stake off the line of the drain carefully. 1f inland thatcan 
be plowed, throw out the upper six inches to one foot with the plow; then 
by line throw out the ditch with ditching spade or common spade down 
to within a foot or sixteen inches of the bottom. The top of the 
ditch should be only a foot wide, or a little less, to avoid handling so 
much dirt, and should slant in to the bottom, where it is merely wide 
enough for the tiles. The last spadeful at the bottom can best be taken 
out with the round-pointed, narrow tile spade. The tile drag or hoe, 
rounding on the bottom, is the proper tool with which to clean out and 
grade the bottom of the ditch. It leaves a concave bottom in which 
the tiles may be snugly laid by walking on them. Where peat, mud or 
sand makes a soft bottom the tiles cannot be trod in place, and in some 
cases it is even necessary to lay a board down to place the tiles on. The 
