WATER SUPPLY FOR CROPS. 27 



get rid of. They are a nuisance on the farm, and the ques- 

 tion is, what shall we do with them? We have either got 

 to excavate and put thom into drains, or else cart them to 

 some pasture and perhaps pick them out again afterwards. 

 Is it not better to make large ditches and put them iu and 

 thus get rid of them once for all? I dig a great many 

 drains at odd jobs, when the ^veather is unfavorable for 

 other farm work, so that the expense is not great. I am 

 now taking up a ditch which my father put in several years 

 ago. It is not serviceable. Why? Because he dug that 

 ditch not over two feet and a half deep. I am digging that 

 ditch about a foot and a half deeper, and I am laying the 

 culverts with a great deal of pains, so that the frost Avill not 

 afiect them. I admit that a tile drain is the best, but I do 

 not use tile. I do not think it will pay me to buy tile, 

 while I have so many stones that I want to get rid of. 



Mr. Wake^ The great question^ seems to be, how to get 

 rid of the stones. There is no question but that it is 

 cheaper to lay a tile drain than it is to make a stone drain, 

 but we want to get rid of the stones. How many of us 

 have farm roads that we are carting over continually with 

 the W' heels half way to the hubs? Why not dig out those 

 roads, put the soil where it will do some good, and fill them 

 in w'ith stone, and make serviceable roads, that will last? 

 Stones are needed in the bottom of every road, the soil can 

 •be much more easily taken out than you can dig a deep 

 trench for a drain, and you can cart it at very little expense 

 compared with the cost of digging a three-foot trench. A 

 trench for a drain should never be less than three feet 

 deep — four would be better. Therefore, as a matter of 

 economy in labor, which is the great expense of farming, it 

 is desirable to lay tile rather than to build stone drains. 

 The cost of the tiles is nothing in comparison with the addi- 

 tional cost of digging these expensive trenches. 



Adjourned to two o'clock. 



