20 AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 



depth and width as you may deem sufficient for the purpose, 

 always making the depth of your open ditch equal to its width 

 at the surface, and grading the sides so as to make the width 

 of the bottom equal to one third of the depth. If required, let 

 blind ditches or covered drains, as deep as the open ditch, and 

 discharging into it, be made to underlie the intersecting paths, 

 as J, J, K, K in the garden plan. Upon descending ground, the 

 main drains or blind ditches should not be made either parallel 

 with the slope or at right angles to it. In the former case 

 they will be of little service, and in the latter will be liable to 

 stoppages from want of current, which may convert them into 

 mere dams, forcing the water to the surface at a lower point. 

 If, then, the ground of your plot be sloping, and the water ooz- 

 ing to the surface, note carefully the upper edge of the line of 

 ooze (A, A, Fig. 2), which is simply the natural drainage, 

 whose current flows always in the direction of the ground 

 slope. At an average distance of twenty feet above the upper 

 edge of the ooze cut a blind ditch or drain three or four feet 

 deep (B 1, Fig. 2), running diagonally across the plot to the 

 side drain, C ; or if it can be done with less labor, omit the 

 side drains, and carry it outside of the fence, letting it dis- 

 charge upon the surface at D. This may either be doubled, 

 as B 1, B 2, D, D, or changed in form, as E, F, F, G, G, G, G, 

 the latter mode being especially useful when the wet spot is in 

 a hollow or dishing form. 



BLIND DITCHES. 



A blind ditch (H) should be cut in the same form as above 

 directed for the outside open ditch around the garden plot ; 

 when it is thus opened, throw in by hand small loose surface 

 stones, say from one to ten pounds in weight, until it is one 

 third or one half filled with them ; over these lay small brush, 

 or shavings, or straw, or sod with the grass side down, and fill 

 up with the earth that came out, rounding it a little directly 

 over the drain to prevent surface water settling into it while 

 the work is fresh. 



