FIRST EFFORTS AT DRAINING. 265 



airth should be drained." This quaint saying, which needs 

 but little qualification, ma^de a lasting impression on the mind 

 ot the boy, that was to be tested by the man to the permanent 

 benefit of his country. Without sufficient means himself, he 

 applied for a loan to the bank of Geneva, and the president, 

 knowing his integrity and industry, granted his request. In 

 1835 tiles were not made in this country. So Mr. Johnston 

 imported some as samples, and a quantity of the horse-shoe 

 pattern were made in 1838, in Waterloo. There was no 

 macliine for producing them, so they were made by hand, and 

 moulded over a stick. This slow and laborious process brought 

 their cost at twenty-four dollars per thousand ; but even at this 

 enormous price Mr. Johnston determined to use them. His 

 ditches were opened and his tile laid, and then what sport for 

 his neighbors. They made fun of the deluded man ; they 

 came and counselled with him, all the while watching his bright 

 eye and intelligent face, for signs of lunacy. They went by 

 wagging their heads and saying, " Aha ! " and one and all said 

 he was a consummate ass to put crockery under ground, and 

 bury his money so fruitlessly. Poor Mr. Johnston ! He says 

 he really felt ashamed of himself for trying the new "plan ; and 

 when people riding past his house would shout at him, and 

 make contemptuous signs, he was sore-hearted and almost ready 

 to conceal his crime. But what was the result ? Why, this : 

 that land which was previously sodden with water, and utterly 

 unfruitful, in one season was covered with luxuriant crops, and 

 the jeering skeptics were utterly confounded that in two crops 

 all his outlay for tiles and labor was repaid, and he could start 

 afresh and drain more land. The profit was so manifest as to 

 induce him to extend his operations each succeeding year, and 

 so go on, until 1856, when the labor was finished, after having 

 laid 210,000 tiles, or more than fifty miles in length. And the 

 fame of this individual success going forth, one and another 

 duplicated his experiments, and were rewarded according to 

 their deserts. The horse-shoe tile was used by Mr. Johnston 

 almost exclusively, for the reason that they were the only kind 

 to be procured at first, and on his hard subsoil he found them all 

 he wished for. He has drains that have been laid more than 

 twenty years without needing repair, and are apparently as 

 efficient now as they were when first laid. 



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