98 TILE DRAINAGE. 



Why, 'tis perfectly plain, 



And not hard to explain: 

 For, you know if you don't, then you ought 'er- 



Though a thing is quite small. 



It don't stay so at all 

 After soaking awhile in the water.} 



So, alas and alack ! 



He could neither go back 

 Nor forward, nor stay, as I said, sir, 



But was " laid out flat," 

 "As a drownded rat," 

 In fact, he was " mortuus est" sir. 



Long after, 'twould seena, 

 Were borne down by the stream/ 

 And found by the farmer, you see, sir, 

 Just the bones and all that 

 Of this ill-fated rat 

 "As dead as a door-nail" could be, sir. 



FABULA DOCET TO KAT8 : 



You may learn from the fate 



Of your mis'able mate 

 To keep out of the mouth of the drain, sirs: 



For though it seems dry, 



There are good reasons why 

 You had better stay out in the rain, sirs! 



FABULA DOCET TO FAHMKKS: 



At the mouth of your tile 



It has happened ere while 

 Such " varmints " have ventured to go, sirs; 



But it's not at all hard 



The outlet to guard, 

 With a grating they can not go through, sirs! 



W. I. C. 



French says, page 188 of "Farm Drainage," "They (the 

 vermin after entering at the outlet) persevere upward and 

 onward till they come, in more senses than one, to an un- 

 timely end. Perhaps, stuck fast in a small pipe tile, they die 

 a nightmare death; or, perhaps, overtaken by a shower, of 

 the effect of which, in their ignorance of the scientific princi- 

 ples of drainage they had no conception, they are drowned 

 before they have time for deliverance from the strait in 



