18 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



processes in the production of ordinary and universal 

 articles of human want. It had furnished me no 

 new or difficult gratification to level and calculate 

 to an inch the amount of Fall to be obtained 

 upon a field, which without this precaution might 

 indeed be called, as it had been called, undrain- 

 able ; and here I was fairly planted, at the first 

 onset. Every inch of depth was of real value 

 at the mouth of so long a line of drain. ' Three 

 feet deep at the outlet ' was the modest extent of 

 my demand ; and there I stood, watching the tiles 

 thrown in pele-mele to a depth of eighteen inches, 

 which I was given to understand was about ' two 

 feet,' with as cool an indifference to the other foot, 

 as if Two and Three had been recently determined 

 by the common assent of mankind to mean the same 

 thing. 



' But I must have it three feet deep ! ' 



* Oh, it's no use ; it'll never draan sa dip as that 

 through this here clay ! ' 



* But I tell you it must be ! There can be no fall 

 without it ! ' 



* Well, I've been a-draining this forty year, and I 

 ought to know summut about it.' 



From that moment I date my experience in the 



