468 Irrigation and Drainage 



So true is this, that a good drainage engineer employs 

 his men by the season or longer, if possible, and 

 divides his work among them in such a way that each 

 man does only one kind of digging. In this way each 

 one becomes an expert in his place, doing more and 

 better work with less effort than is possible in any 

 other way. The man who finishes the bottom of the 

 ditch and the man who lays the tiles must not only 

 be skillful, but must be thoroughly trustworthy and 

 patient, or faulty work will be done. The work 

 is often so unpleasant, defects are so easily covered 

 from inspection, and it will be so long before they 

 could be discovered and the responsibility properly 

 placed, that only men of peculiar fitness should ever 

 be trusted with it. These men must be well paid, 

 they must not be crowded, and there must be nothing 

 else to take their attention. When the right sort of 

 man has been secured for this work, and has been 

 trained to it, he is far more to be trusted than almost 

 any farmer, even for whom the work is to be done, 

 because the farmer will have so many other things to 

 take his attention, and he will be so anxious to have 

 the job off his hands, that his patience will not per- 

 mit him to take the necessary time to get every joint 

 of the 100,000 just right before it is left. Important 

 drainage work, then, should be left to expert men 

 wherever practicable. 



It is very important that the farmer who has land 

 to drain should thoroughly appreciate these essential 

 conditions for safe work, not only to prevent himself 

 from undertaking what he cannot hope himself to do 



