DRAIN'A(}E. 



11 



<^f4\^* 



in soils can determine almost to a certainty, by digging 

 down two or three feet, whether or not a soil requires 

 drainage ; but the safest guide for the inexperienced is to 

 judge by the growing crops in his 

 neighborhood. If on a similar soil 

 good crops of corn, potatoes, or 

 hay are found on undrained land, 

 then it is certain there is no ne- 

 cessity to drain; for no matter how 

 cultivated, or how heavily manured 

 land is, there can never be a good 

 crop raised in any season, if the 

 soil is water-logged. If the place 

 to be drained is of large extent, 

 and the ground nearly level, it will 

 always be safer to call in the services 

 of an engineer to give the proper levels and indicate the 

 necessary fall, wliich should never be less than half a foot 

 in the hundred, and if more can be had, so much the bet- 

 ter. In heavy, clayey soils, we make our lateral drains 

 three feet deep and fifteen feet apart. Where there is less 

 clay in the subsoil we make them from twenty to thirty 

 feet apart and four feet deep. If stones are plenty on 

 the ground, they may be profitably used in filling up the 

 excavated ditch to half its depth, as shown in figure 3, 



Fig. 1.— BUBBLE DBAIN. 



Fig. 2. — HOKSE-SHOE DRAIN TILE. 



and which is known as a rubble drain, using the larger 

 stones at the bottom and smaller at top, and covering 

 over with inverted sods, or six inches of shavings or hay, 

 to keep the soil from being washed in among the stones, 

 and thus choking up the drain. But when they can be 



