178 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



drains were laid twenty-seven feet apart, and dug three feet deep 

 (ordinarily), and one foot wide from top to bottom ; in the middle 

 of the bottom a groove was cut for the pipe, so the top of it would 

 be three feet from the surface. No narrow tools were used, ex- 

 cept to cut the grooves for the pipe. The foreman said that, 

 though a man could work to much better advantage in a wider- 

 mouthed dram, the extra dirt to be moved compensated for it, and 

 made this plan the cheapest. 



I thought then, and since, until I came to try it in gravelly and 

 stony land, that the work might be done much more rapidly with 

 the long, narrow tools described by Mr. Delafield,* making the 

 bottom of the drain only of the width of the pipe intended to be 

 laid ; but I find these can only be used to advantage in free 

 ground. The method here described is probably the best for 

 draining soils, where many stones larger than a hen's egg are to 

 be met with. 



Cylindrical pipes, of either one or one and a half inch bore, 

 were laid in the grooves at the bottom of the dram ; collars, con- 

 necting them, were only used in the loosest soils. The mains 

 were laid one foot deeper than the collecting drains, and the pipes 

 in them were from two to six inches bore. No series of drains 

 were run more than seventy yards in length without a main, and 

 all the mains emptied into an open ditch at the lowest side of the 

 field, which was made deep enough to allow of a drop of one foot 

 from the mouths of the pipes. Where such a ditch was likely to 

 gully, the sides were sloped and turfed. 



The wages of the men employed at this work averaged $2.25 

 a week ; boys, 1 6 cents a day. 



Mr. Green sent a lad to guide me across the park to the road 

 I wished to take a remarkably bright, amiable boy, with whom 

 I had a pleasant talk, as he led me on by the most charming way 



* Transactions N. Y. State Agricultural Soc., 1848, p. 232. 



