DRAINAGE. 



11 



requires drainage, but the safest guide for the inexperi- 

 enced is to judge by the growing crops in his neighbor- 

 hood. If on a similar soil good crops of corn, pota- 

 toes, or hay, are found on undrain- 

 ed soil, then it is certain there is 

 no necessity to drain, for no matter 

 how cultivated, or how heavily ma- 

 nured land is, there can never be a 

 good crop raised in any season, if 

 the soil is water-logged. If the 

 place to be drained is of large ex- 

 tent, and the ground nearly level, 

 it will always be safer to call in the 

 services of an engineer to give the 

 proper levels and indicate the 

 necessary fall, which should never 

 be less than half a foot in the hundred, and if more can be 

 had, so much the better. In heavy, clayey soils, we 

 make our lateral drains three feet deep and fifteen feet 

 apart, where there is less clay in the subsoil, we make 

 them from twenty to thirty feet apart, and four feet 

 ieep. If stones are plenty on the ground, they may be 

 profitably used in filling up the excavated ditch to half 

 its depth, as shown in figure 1, and which is known as a 

 rubble drain, using the larger stones at the bottom, and 



Fig. 2. HORSE-SHOE DBAIN-TILE. 



smaller at top, and covering over with inverted sods, to 

 keep the soil from being washed in among the stones, 

 and thus choking up the drain. But when they can be 

 obtained at reasonable price, the best and most durable 

 draining is that done by tiles. It makes but little dif- 

 ference whether the tile used is the round with collars, 



