TILE DRAINAGE. 78 



on all winter, except a few severe days, in latitude 37 to 41. 

 The winter care of farm stock morning and night will be 

 about all that need interfere with the ditching, 



After the fall rains have soaked the earth, but not made it 

 too soft, say about October 1st or 15th, the general location 

 of the mains and laterals should be carefully determined by 

 spirit-level, if the eye and the remembrance of past wet times 

 are not enough ; and the exact location be measured off with 

 tape-line, and indicated by tall stakes, and a deep furrow be 

 plowed with a strong team just where each drain is to be, 

 shading deeper through short knolls, and shallower through 

 each depression, so as to approximate a true grade. A 

 month or so of heavy fall rains will cut and fill in the bot- 

 tom of these furrows, giving still more nearly a true grade. 

 Then, just before the hand-digging and tile-laying begin, the 

 latter p irt of November, plow a second furrow in the bot- 

 tom of each, trying hard to improve the grade as indicated 

 by the cutting and filling of the earth by the rains. My sys- 

 tem for in arly three miles of drains, draining about fifteen 

 acres three rods apart, was thus laid out the first week in 

 October, 1890. The second furrows were plowed the tlrrd 

 week in November. A day and a half with man and team 

 laid them out and plowed both furrows, making the drains 

 some 8 inches dee]). It would have cost some $50 to do this 

 with line and spade, and the grading would not have been so 

 good. 



The advantage, however, in thus "taking time by the 

 forelock" is not merely the saving in hand-digging, but the 

 fact that we thus have the full preparation for winter ditch- 

 ing made in two days in fall. The loose earth in the bottom 

 of the furrows, and the snow that blows into and lodges in 

 them d.uring even the short flurries of snow, keep the ground 

 from fi-cczhuj too hard to dig all winter long. From Nov. 

 18 to Dec. 22, last fall there were only two days when we 

 could not dig with comfort, and very few days the rest of 

 the winter and spring up to April first. This utilizes the 



