246 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMEEICAN INSTITUTE. 



answered that question, I will give my plan. I dug- a circle large enoagh 

 for a yoke of oxen to work in. I then removed the loam, dug the clay one 

 foot deep, (any ordinary clay will answer.) I tread this clay with oxen, 

 and added some straAv cut three or four inches long. After the clay is well 

 tempered with working it with cattle the material is duly prepared for 

 making brick. I then made a mold twelve inches long, six inches wide 

 and four inches thick. Two molds areTenough, as one man will mold as 

 fast as another man will carry away. The bricks are placed upon the level 

 ground, where they are suffered to dry two days, turning them up edge- 

 ways the second day; then packed in a pile, protected from the rain, and 

 left to dry ten or twelve days. In all cases, before commencing the walls 

 for the first story, dig down to a solid foundation and fill up with stone to 

 at least one foot above the level of the surface of the ground; and if the 

 stone cf the foundation, was laid with lime mortar, so much the better, 

 although mine is not laid with anything. These bricks are not burned, but 

 dried in the sun. You can make your molds larger or less just as you like. 

 I have built a house twenty-four feet square, 'with a wing twelve feet, and 

 I would not trade it for any frame house of the same size that I have seen, 

 and I am satisfied a house built of unburned brick don't cost half so much 

 as a frame, and any laboring man can build his own house. I came from 

 England a few years ago, having been engaged in the bleaching business 

 all my life; never having seen a house of this description; did not know 

 anything about building, and I have as comfortable a house as any in these 

 parts. I am satisfied that a house of unburned brick can be built for less 

 than a log cabin of the same size, and it is worth five log cabins." 



Cheap Underdraining. 



Mr. Tasker also gives his experience in underdraining. He says: 

 " I believe that there is no outlay on a farm that pays half so well as 

 draining. I had a field of three and a half acres of what we call upland, 

 that is, it is hard land. In one corner there Avas a low place, generally 

 wet, and on one side there was another low place, always wet. These two 

 places kept about all the field wet. I had tried several times to raise corn, 

 potatoes and wheat, it was always a failure. I went at it and cut timber 

 four feet long and two by four inches wide. I dug the drains three feet 

 deep, and from two to three rods apart. Most of the drains were very hard 

 cutting; it was this 3'ellow clay mixed with gravel, very compact.. The 

 result was, I got a first rate piece of corn. I sowed wheat after corn, and 

 got twenty-nine bushels per acre, and seeding it down to grass got a first 

 rate crop of hay. Plowed again last spring for corn, but the summer being 

 very dry the corn was not extra, but a good crop. Last fall sowed it to 

 wheat, and am satisfied it will yield forty bushels per acre if it don't lodge. 

 This field, costing me $100 in labor, has more than paid for itself It has 

 been drained four years. 



"I drained another field the same size, also with the same material, and on 

 the same plan. It was a great deal better to dig, being a blue or black 

 clay. ' Being more porous we put the drains abcmt three rods apart. This 

 field was drained three years ago. The first year got sixty bushels of 

 shelled corn; after corn, twenty-nine bushels of wheat per acre, badly 



