DRAINAGE 183 



In case the two fields are planted with the same crop, 

 it can be sown continuously through the ditches and 

 over the flat embankment, or, if different crops are grown 

 in adjacent fields, each crop may be planted to the cen- 

 ter of the embankment. In many cases of level land, 

 these side ditches may be made so broad that, even if 

 more than a foot deep, since they are so flat, the plow and 

 cultivating and harvesting implements may be operated 

 across or through them. Care should always be taken, 

 however, not to plow or cultivate in such a manner as to 

 fill the ditches. On most nearly level farms these broad 

 flat double ditches should follow the lowest places rather 

 than as lines with which to divide the fields. Wire 

 fences crossing them are easily removed, when it is de- 

 sirable to use the reversible road machine to clean the 

 accumulations of drifted soil out of the side ditches. 



Dead furrows. To conduct the water from the fields 

 into these broad partition ditches, each field is laid off in 

 lands about 100 feet wide. Each year the back furrows 

 are started in the same place or within one or two feet 

 of the same line, thus bringing the dead furrows, year 

 after year, at the same place. These dead furrows are 

 thus made into broad flat ditches. Where slight depres- 

 sions occur some rods across and a foot or less deep, the 

 road machine may be used to deepen the dead furrows, 

 and thus grade their bottoms so that the water in these 

 low areas will all drain out into the broad ditches be- 

 tween the fields. In some cases, it is necessary to make 

 short broad ditches from low areas within the one-hun- 

 dred-foot-wide lands into the dead furrows between. 

 Care is necessary to keep the dead furrow clear of rub- 

 bish, and in some' cases to open it out and grade 

 its bottom smoothly in the fall. Where this open- 

 ing of ditches has been neglected until spring, a 

 man with a shovel connects the low places and 

 shallow ditches with the dead furrows and cleans out 



