156 HOW TO GET A FABM, 



plied to test the bottoms thoroughly. The necessity of this 

 precaution will be apparent to any one who reflects that if 

 a tile or two in the course of a ditch be set much too high 

 or too low at either end, the water quickly forms a basin 

 beneath and around, sediment is washed into the adjoining 

 pipe, and ultimately even the whole bore is filled and the 

 drain stopped. When this happens, it will be indicated 

 after a time by the water appearing at the surface of the 

 ground above the spot drawn upward by capillary attrac 

 tion. In such a case the ditch must be reopened and the 

 tile relaid. 



&quot; Mr. Johnston says tile-draining pays for itself in two 

 seasons, sometimes in one. Thus, in 1847, he bought a 

 piece of ten acres to get an outlet for his drains. It was a 

 perfect quagmire, covered with coarse aquatic grasses, and 

 so unfruitful that it would not give back the seed sown 

 upon it. In 1848, a crop of corn was taken from it, which 

 was measured, and found to be eighty bushels per acre, and 

 as, because of the Irish famine, corn was worth $1 per 

 bushel that year, this crop paid not only all the expense of 

 drainage, but the first cost of the land as well. 



&quot; Another piece of twenty acres, adjoining the farm of 

 the late John Delafield, was wet, and would never bring 

 more than ten bushels of corn per acre. This was drained 

 at a great cost, nearly $30 per acre. The first crop after 

 this was 83 bushels and some odd pounds per acre. It was 

 weighed and measured by Mr. Delafield, and the County 

 Society awarded a premium to Mr. Johnston. Eight acres 

 and some rods of this land, at one side, averaged 94 

 bushels, or the trifling increase of 84 bushels per acre over 

 what it would bear before those insignificant clay tiles were 

 buried in the ground. But this increase of crop is not the 

 only profit of drainage ; for Mr. Johnston says that on 

 drained land one-half the usual quantity of manure suffices 



