EXPERIMENTS IN DRAINING. 281 



had to use a double row of six-inch tiles for over 

 fifty rods ; this received a great flow of water from 

 a public road, which was let into the tiles by dig- 

 ging a basin at the upper end of the drain and then 

 filling with small stones over the tiles. These extra 

 sized tiles increased the expense of these drains, 

 making 1,072 J rods to cost about 40 cents per rod. 

 The first year after completing the drains on this 

 field, the whole or nearly the whole, upland and all, 

 .was planted with corn ; the season was not favor- 

 able for that crop in this neighborhood, yet the crop 

 was fair, say full 40 bushels shelled corn to the acre ; 

 the low ground was excellent, where nothing but 

 coarse grass grew for twenty years before. This 

 year, 1851, I harvested from this field a crop of 

 wheat, and a heavier crop I never saw to stand up. 

 Heretofore many acres of wheat were lost on the 

 upland by freezing out, and none would grow on the 

 low lands. Now there is no loss from that cause ; 

 only two small patches, in all less than one quarter 

 of an acre, were lodged ; in fact, the whole field 

 was so even that it was difficult to pronounce any 

 five acres worse than the rest. The wheat fly or 

 weevil injured it a little, but I think not a great deal ; 

 I have not yet thrashed enough to know the yield 

 of wheat per acre. The wet ground got from my 



