CHAPTER XII. 



OTHER POINTS IN DRAINAGE. 



HEN you are draining a field it is well to make 

 a map on paper or a board, showing the loca- 

 tion of each drain. A map like this, made to a 

 scale, is a nice thing to look at, and if any drain 

 should give out, or you wish at any time to put in 

 additional laterals, it will be quite a help. Where 

 the field is very regular a farmer might make this map. In some 

 cases it w r ould require -an expert, and, perhaps, would not pay. 

 I made a rough sketch of my drains, showing general direction of 

 each one, number of laterals, etc., from which I can find one 

 without much trouble. One will forget, however. I dug a full 

 hour to find a main this spring that I thought I could put my 

 spade right over. 



It is no easy matter to fix the outlet to a drain so it will keep 

 as you leave it. After much experience, I do not recommend 

 laying up in masonry for ordinary cases. It is costly, and must 

 be very thoroughly done to stand frost and action of water, crabs, 

 etc. As usually done, it is soon out of fix. If you lay your 

 common i2-inch-long drain tiles at the outlet, and simply let 

 them come out into an open ditch, without any protection, some 

 of them will be displaced soon by frost and water, the outlet 

 more or less obstructed, and, perhaps, a regular mud hole or 

 quagmire will be formed, particularly if cattle are around. Every 

 spring you may go down and take up two or three tiles back to 

 where they are in place, and clean out a course for the water, and 

 thus your outlet slowly works back, but surely. I know, for I 

 have tried it. I have fixed mine late years in a quite satisfactory 

 way the best way, I think, take cost and everything into 

 account. I got two-foot lengths of sewer pipe, say three for each 

 outlet, of same size as tiles. This sewer pipe has a collar at one 

 end of each pipe, or socket, into which the end of the next piece 

 fits. When laid, frost cannot displace so but what the water 

 goes through. I put these three at the end of drain, and built up 

 around outlet with heavy sods. If it is much of a bank, and no 

 cattle around, these keep in good order some years. One simply 

 needs to clean the open ditch below mouth of tiles every spring, 

 or see it is clean. 



I have one outlet that is nearly always under water. It is 

 into a ditch that is seldom dry. I do not see but this works just 

 as well as the open outlets. Sometimes the ditch fills with sedi- 



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