SOIL, DRAINAGE AND PREPARATION. 29 



The modes of draining must be guided to a great 

 extent by circumstances. Wherever stones are abund- 

 ant on land, the most economical way to dispose of 

 them is to use them for drainage.. 1 .have also used 

 with great success in a wet, sandy subsoil, where dig- 

 ging was easily done, brush from adjacent woods, cut off 

 and trodden firmly two feet deep in the bottom of drains 

 five feet deep, overlaying the brush with straw or 

 meadow hay before covering in. Drains so made have 

 answered well for nearly a dozen years, and in sit- 

 uations where no other material offers, they will at 

 least answer a temporary purpose. But unquestion- 

 ably, when at all attainable at anything like reason- 

 able cost, the cheapest and most thorough draining 

 is by tile. We use here the ordinary horseshoe or 



Fig. 1. HORSESHOE TILE. 



round tile three-inch size for the laterals, and from five 

 to six inch for the mains. On stiff, clayey soils we 

 make our lateral drains three feet deep and from fifteen 

 to eighteen feet apart; on soils with less compact sub- 

 soils, twenty to twenty-five feet distant. We find it 

 cheaper to use the horseshoe than the sole tile. In lieu 

 of the sole we cut common hemlock boards in four 

 pieces that is, cut them through the middle and split 

 these again, making a board thus cut run about fifty feet. 

 These are placed in the bottom of the drains and prevent 

 the cagging of the tiles in any particular spot that 

 might be soft (figure 1). We are particularly careful 

 to place, after setting, a piece of sod, grass down, 

 over the joinings of the tiles to prevent the soil from 

 getting in and stopping up the drainage. 



The manner of constructing stone drains is gov- 



