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the greatest wastes of labor, which greatly augmented the cost, 

 in the habit my men had acquired of digging wide ditches. The 

 ditches having been excavated at the required depth, a half of a 

 hard brick was firmly set where the ditch ended, and against 

 this one end of the tile was closely set to prevent the soil work- 

 ing in with the water. The tile (those well baked having been 

 carefully selected) were placed end to end as closely fitted as 

 possible, until the open ditch was reached. Small stones were 

 firmly wedged between each side of each tile and the side of the 

 ditch to keep them in line, and a forkfull of eel grass, which is 

 almost indestructible, dropped over each joint. When the quan- 

 tity of water to be carried off was very large, small stones to the 

 depth of three or four inches were carefully placed over the tile, 

 and these were covered with eel grass. The soil was put on 

 with great care to prevent any breaking of the tile and so conse- 

 quently destroying the drain. In putting on this first layer of 

 soil I had a man stand in the ditch and taking the earth from the 

 sides carefully place it. On the muck-meadow, where the bot- 

 tom of the ditch did not reach the clay, I laid hemlock boards 

 about six inches in width. The ditches on the clay soil were 

 dug to a depth of over three feet ; I am satisfied that this was a 

 mistake, and if they had been dug to a depth of two feet and a 

 half, and been put as near agairl together, they really would have 

 been more satisfactory. In reclaiming some of the tracts I found 

 that ditches conveying the water from the springs which drain- 

 ed them directly into the main open ditch was all that was nec- 

 essary. Some acres of muck-meadow were by this means drain- 

 ed sufficiently dry without the systematic placing of tiles every 

 two rods. In one instance where a ditch came near a wall where 

 plenty of small, loose stones had accumulated in the course of 

 many years dumping, I had the experiment tried of using these 

 in place of tile, with reference to determining the comparative 

 cost. The result was decidedly in favor of the tile ; the great 



