212 FARM DEVELOPMENT 



Opening the ditches with machinery. In a previous 

 paragraph, plowing out furrows with the common plow 

 was advised ; in some cases the capstan ditching plow 

 can be used for throwing out the first 18 to 24 inches of 

 earth, thus greatly lessening the amount of hand digging 

 for tile drains. 



Tile-ditching machines which throw the dirt to one 

 side of the ditch have been invented, and some of them 

 have been used with more or less success. 

 Others have been devised to carry the dirt 

 backward and throw it again in the ditch 

 behind a man who lays the tiles ; and still 

 others which automatically lay the tiles 

 have also been projected and made almost 

 successful in soils which are free from 

 stones and on which the machine can be 

 run without sinking too deeply into soft 

 earth. 



The grade of the bottom of the tile is 

 H F i gu l e -^i 4 - rr T 1 ? controlled, in case of machines for open- 



nook, handle 7 feet t 



hook 10 inches j n g the drain, by means of levels marked 

 on stakes, above the line of the ditch, 

 with cross bars at a given distance above the desired 

 grade of the bottom of the drain, the operator on the 

 machine keeping the depth of the ditching device under 

 control by sighting from a point on the machine to 

 these cross bars of the successive stakes. Figure no 

 shows a mole tile-ditching machine with attachment. 

 A, capstan; B, mole ditching machine; X, man control- 

 ling grade of the drain with a wheel and keeping the 

 marker, mounted on the mole coulter in line with 

 markers', O-P, on two stakes so placed as to be parallel 

 with the line of the desired grade. A man sitting in a 

 pit lays tiles on the steel ribbon, F, which is attached to 

 the large steel mole, M, and they are drawn into place. 

 These pits are placed every 50 or 100 feet. These 



. 



long, 

 long. 



