78 An American Fruit-Farm 



passing through the tile at bottom of the ditch, will 

 sink into the gravel all along the length of the ditch, 

 and ordinarily fail to reach the well. Cover the 

 ditch with care, and care consists, in laying the tile, 

 say four- or six-inch as may be needed according 

 to the amount of water to be carried away ; the tile 

 lying end to end, in foot lengths, the joints open, 

 and protected by small fiat stones, set like the 

 peak of a roof, over the joint. Fill the ditch, 

 covering the tile, to a depth of a foot or more with 

 loose stone, — small round-heads picked up from 

 the farm. This stone covering acts as a drain and 

 filter. If the soil through which the ditch is dug 

 is hard clay, or close loam, it is well to cover the 

 loose stone with strips of burlap, — old phosphate 

 bags, which will keep the superincumbent earth 

 back from washing into the spaces between the 

 stones, till the earth has hardened, or "settled.'* 

 This simple protection secures a practically open 

 run-way for the water at bottom of the ditch, to a 

 height, say of the imposed stones. At the entrance 

 to the ditch, near the center of the low spot, cover 

 the stone — ^laid atop the tile — with coarse gravel, 

 say for a rod. This makes sure the easy entrance 

 of the surface water as it accumulates after a heavy- 

 downpour. The drainage well itself is dug to a 

 depth which gives coarse gravel as a bottom, to an 

 indefinite depth. The well, walled up with loose 

 stone, like an ordinary water -well, should be foiu: 

 or five feet in the clear, and may be arched over at 

 the top; or covered with large flat stones, or with 



