THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 313 



those that are laid where there is no water during the summer. 

 Necessity compelled me to use hemlock or elm plank. But the 

 better the timber is, the more durable a drain will be. As plank 

 is costly, I have in some instances sawed up slabs for covering. 



434. The young farmer should be very careful not to lay any 

 poor pieces of plank in a drain. Plank sawed out of logs near the 

 tops of trees, in most kinds of timber, will not be as durable as 

 plank cut from the butt logs. Let the best plank be laid at the 

 lower end of a drain ; and if poor pieces must be used, although 

 they had better be thrown among the firewood, let them all be 

 placed together at the upper end of the drain. Now return about 

 a foot in depth of the hardest dirt, and tread it down well ; and 

 should the plank decay in less than twenty years, in which time 

 they probably will not, the earth will be so compact that a water- 

 passage would remain in. the earth for ages to come. In filling 

 in the earth on plank, I am always careful to see that no stones 

 lie directly on the plank. My plank drains seem to drain the land 

 as soon and as effectually as tile or stone. 



ON THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF STONE, TILE AND PLANK 

 FOR FILLING DITCHES. 



435. In making small drains, where two-inch tile will carry 

 the water, providing tile do not have to be hauled more than 

 four or five miles, the expense in dollars and cents of purchasing 

 two-inch tile and laying them, would be less than the expense of 

 picking up and laying the stone for a given number of rods. But 

 a tile drain is always letter than stone or wood drains. The 

 expense of purchasing, hauling, and laying four-inch tile will 

 greatly exceed the expense of a stone or plank drain, which will 

 carry a stream of equal size. I always consider it the best policy 

 to use up my stone in making drains, as far as they will go, and 

 then, if there is but little water, use tile ; and if there is a stream 

 large enough to fill a four-inch tile, use plank. Four : inch tile 

 cost at our works, eighteen miles from me, forty dollars per thou 

 sand ; and a thousand tile fourteen inches long will lay about 

 seventy rods. Now if stone are not too scarce and scattering, 



