62 



Success with Small Fruits. 



of digging. Tile also can be laid rapidly and is not liable to become 

 obstructed if properly protected at points of discharge by gratings, so 

 that vermin cannot enter. They should not be laid near willow, elm and 

 other trees of like character, or else the fibrous roots will penetrate and 

 fill the channel. If one has a large problem of drainage to solve, he 

 should carefully read a work like Geo. E. Waring's " Draining for Profit 

 and for Health " ; and if the slope or fall of some fields is very slight, say 

 scarcely one foot in a hundred, the services of an engineer should be 

 employed, and accurate grades obtained. By a well-planned system, the 

 cost of draining a place can be greatly reduced, and the water made 

 very useful. 



On my place at Cornwall I found three acres of wet land, each in turn 

 illustrating one of the causes which make drainage necessary. I used 

 stone, because, in some instances, no other material would have answered, 

 in others partly because I was a novice in the science of drainage, and 

 partly because I had the stones on my place, and did not know what else 

 to do with them. I certainly could not cart them on my neighbors' 

 ground without having a surplus of hot as well as cold water, so I con- 

 cluded to bury them in the old-fashioned box-drains. Indeed, I found 

 rather peculiar and difficult problems of drainage, and the history of their 

 solution may contain useful hints to the reader. 



Map Showing Experiments in the Drainage of a Strawberry Farm. 



). Srr.ossN.Y. 



In front of my house there is a low, level plot of land containing about 

 three acres. Upon this the surface water ran from all sides, and there was 

 no outlet. The soil was, in consequence, sour, and in certain spots only a 

 wiry marsh grass would grow. And yet it required but a glance to see 

 that a drain, which could carry off this surface water immediately, would 

 render it the best land on the place. I tried, in vain, the experiment of 



