HOW FUEEOWS AEE MADE. 199 



half is placed on a level with the lower half of 

 the preceding plug, the lower half will be exactly in 

 position to receive the leg of the level to lay out the next 

 space. In this way the ground is gone over until the 

 whole line is laid out and the end is reached. From 

 these trial contour lines furrows may be traced and laid 

 out, using pegs, in the same manner as before, and 

 a plow to make furrows, following the line of the 

 pegs. Or one man using the level nearly as fast as he 

 can walk, may be followed by a boy or another man with 

 a hoe made for this purpose, with a blade 18 inches in 

 width, with which a furrow is rapidly opened, almost 

 as fast as the line can be laid out. The distributing fur- 

 rows may be laid out in straight lines across the contour 

 lines, see fig. 82, which will save labor. The main canal, 

 a, a, fig. 82, passes along the highest part of the field. 

 The contour lines, which are the lines of level, see dotted 

 lines b, #, are run from the canal on either side and 

 meander with the irregularities of the surface. To avoid 

 the meandering of the distributing furrows, they are 

 made to run in straight lines from the canal, cutting 

 across the contour lines with what fall may be found 

 necessary ; these furrows are shown at c, c, c. By regu- 

 lating the supply of water so that all is absorbed, none 

 need go to waste. But it would be safe to run a drainage 

 furrow to carry off any accidental surplus across the lowest 

 portions of the distributing canals, as shown by the dark 

 lines, d, d. 



When the furrows are properly leveled, the soil may be 

 watered, either by saturation from the furrows down- 

 wards, in the case of steep hill sides, or by tapping the ., 

 furrows, and causing the water to escape down wards from 

 them. The method of watering lands of considerable 

 slope ; that is, of more than five feet in a hundred, or ten 

 inches in 16 feet, must be different from that previously 

 described in this chapter, or by flooding ; on the contrary 



