92 TILE DRAINAGE. 



ditching-spade. It is shown in Fig. 24, and consists of the 

 ordinary spade-handle, but, instead of a full spade-blade, 

 three strong, straight, steel tines extend down some IB in.. 

 and are smoothly riveted to a spade-edge; i. c., a cutting edge 

 of about five or six inches wide and two inches deep. This 

 slices the mucky earth nicely, while the latter can not stick to 

 the narrow, square tapering tines. But these in turn help 

 lift out the slice of earth. Such tined ditching-spades are 

 found in most of the hardware stores of the prairie States. I 

 looked in all the hardware stores of Cleveland, O., in vain to 

 find one to try in my clay subsoil. It is so stony, and apt to 

 crumble, that 1 presume the regular ditching-spade will work 

 best here. I doubt whether the tined spade would take such 

 dirt out clean enough; but I should have liked to try one, 

 and wish now that I had sent west for one by express. But 

 I did not, and hence it is simply my opinion that, on the 

 average, in our clayey subsoils, the regul-ir ditching-spade 

 will do the best and cleanest work. Still, in some of our 

 clays at a certain stage of dampness the earth sticks to the 

 back of the spa'de quite badly, and so I usually carry an old_ 

 table-knife in the hip-pocket or side leg-pocket of jAy over- 

 alls. It is the best and quickest thing to clean tW spade 

 with, and, thus carried, it is always ready for use. 



ESTABLISHING CLOSE GRADES. 



When there is an abundance of fall, as on most of our 

 rolling clayey farms, a good hand and eye will faep the 

 grade, when once established by the plow and flood-water, 

 near the surface as described. But where the grade is pretty 

 close, and you have only an inch or so to the hundred feet, it 

 is best, as before stated, to get a careful civil or drainage 

 engineer to establish the grade and set exact stakes as often 

 as ea?,h hundred feet, each marked with the exact depth of 

 the ditch at that point. Then you can yourself set sighting- 

 rods, or boning-rods, as they are sometimes called; that is, set 

 a stake about four feet high, about a foot from each edge of 



