SKEPAGK AND DRAINAGE. 443 



Open Ditches. — There are different methods of 

 drainage suitable alike to the surrounding conditions. 

 For draining swampy lands caused from seepage, open 

 ditches cut at an average depth of three or four feet 

 will reclaim the land and make it tillable. These 

 should be run with the fall or slope of the land. A 

 mistaken course is often adopted by placing the lines 

 for the drains in an oblique dire(5lion down the slope 

 instead of diredlly by the shortest course. Such 



FIG. Ill — INCORRECT DRAINAGE. 



ditches are needlessly long and are made with much 

 additional labor, and, what is still more objedlionable, 

 they perform their intended work in a very inefficient 

 manner. Fig. iii represents the portion of a field, 

 the lower part of which toward the spedlator receives 

 the water from the sloping land above. The dark 

 lines are the ditches, laid in a slanting dire(5lion, and 

 are much longer than those in Fig. 112, which run by 

 the shortest cut dire<5lly down the slope. An objec- 

 tion to the sloping drainage, as already stated, is that 

 it carries off the surplus water in a very imperfe(5l 

 manner. As water will not run up-hill, all the water 

 received by such ditches presses toward the lower side, 

 and as the ditch is expe<5led to draw water away from 



