DRAFTING 



1850 



DRAINAGE 



Mr. A has money in New York, but not in 

 Toronto. So he goes to his New York bank, 

 which has money on deposit in a Toronto bank 

 or whose credit with it is assured, and gets a 

 draft for $500, made payable by the Toronto 

 bank to Mr. B. When B gets the draft he 

 presents it for payment at the Toronto bank. 

 The latter makes the payment and in turn 

 charges the amount to the New York bank. In 

 this way A's debt is discharged. 



A draft, on the other hand, may be used in 

 another way to secure payment of money. 

 Suppose the Spurlock Company of Chicago 

 owes William Brownell of Montreal, and that 

 E. J. Smith, also of Montreal, owes the Spur- 

 lock Company. The latter may write such a 

 draft as is shown in the illustration and tender 

 it to Brownell in payment of its debt to him. 

 When Smith pays Brownell as requested, a 

 three-cornered indebtedness is cancelled. If a 

 draft reads "pay at sight" or "on demand," a 

 debtor must at once either pay the amount of 

 the draft or reject it. If the draft is payable 

 in sixty days he may accept it, thereby agree- 

 ing to pay it. His acceptance is indicated by 

 the word Accepted and his signature on the 

 face of the draft. After the draft is accepted 

 he is legally responsible for its amount, for it 

 is then, in effect, a note. If he fails to pay 

 at the time fixed, he may be sued without 

 further notice. See, also, CHECK; NEGOTIABLE 

 PAPER. 



DRAFTING. See CONSCRIPTION. 



DRAGON, drag' un, a name which most com- 

 monly belongs to the harmless East Indian 

 flying lizard, of beautiful, butterfly hues, but is 

 also applied to various tree-lizards of Southern 

 California, South America, Asia and Africa. 

 The flying lizard is about eight inches long. 



In legends and myths the dragon is the em- 

 blem of evil, and in Christian art it is pictured 

 as a fierce, winged crocodile, breathing fire. 

 The Chinese regard the dragon as a divinity, 

 and have adopted it as their imperial emblem. 



DRAGON FLY, a beautiful water insect, with 

 large, long, gauzelike wings that give it power- 

 ful and rapid flight. A "glimmering, glittering 

 flutterer fair," dressed in beautiful greens and 

 blues and browns, it is as attractive and inter- 

 esting as the butterfly. It has very large 

 beadlike eyes and a long, slender body, and 

 is widely known as the devil's darning needle. 

 To this always-hungry but absolutely harmless 

 insect are attributed many strange actions. It 

 feeds merely on other insects, chiefly mos- 

 quitoes and flies, and usually catches and 



eats them while flying over the ponds or 

 marshes where it lives. It is therefore a benefit 

 to humanity. The dragon fly lays its eggs in 

 the water, where the pupae (young) live for 



a year, greedily eat- | ing the water insects, 

 and then from the If top of a reed or a 

 rock they burst forth in all their golden 

 beauty. Dragon flies migrate like birds, but 

 the reason for their flight has not been deter- 

 mined. 



DRAIN 'AGE. How many farmers would 

 believe you if told that they could increase the 

 size of their farms without enlarging their 

 boundaries? The proposition seems absurd, yet 

 it is a fact that the average farm could be 

 increased in depth. The deeper the roots of a 

 plant penetrate the soil the more nourishment 

 they can extract, and artificial drainage, by 

 lowering the level at which water saturates the 

 soil and shuts out air, enables roots to thrive 

 farther below the surface. A farmer ought not 

 to be content with having his fields free from 

 standing surface-water; if a post hole four or 

 five feet deep contains water during part of 

 the growing season he will gain by installing 

 a drainage system. 



In a large part of the United States and 

 Canada rain falls more rapidly than evapora- 

 tion, natural drainage, seepage through the soil 

 and absorption by plants can dispose of it, and 

 the line of saturation, called the water-table, 

 is not very far below the surface. In clay soil 

 moisture rises more than four feet above the 

 water-table just as ink climbs in a piece of 

 blotting-paper (see CAPILLARITY), and in sand 

 it rises nearly two feet. 



The Best Way to Drain. Open ditches are 

 seldom satisfactory on a farm. They remove 

 part of the tillable area, obstruct movement 

 and sometimes become filled with weeds and 

 breed mosquitoes. Underground drains are 

 much more effective, especially when built with 

 hollow tile. 



There are no fixed rules for the laying of 

 underground drains. The character of the soil, 

 the lay of the land and the amount of water 

 to be carried must be considered in each case. 



