ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 65 



laying he didn't allow his men in the ditch after leveling, 

 it must be level bottom. In laying the tile he used a stick 

 and dropped them into the ditch. In very wet spots he 

 used his judgment as to how many feet apart to lay tiles. 

 He had raised seventy-five bushels of corn per acre where it 

 had been slough land. Most of the farms in Illinois were 

 three-fourths good land. Sometimes you could put corn 

 for first crop on drained land ; on most land it would not 

 do at first, however. 



Judge Lawrence : Thought the question of drainage 

 was one of the most important. He had drained land that 

 was more rolling than that in this part of the state, where, 

 owing to the peculiar distribution of the soil strata, the 

 water ran out on the surface of the ground. The trouble 

 in drainage was that the water that came into the tiles was 

 was from the bottom of the ditch. Round tiles were the 

 best. He knew something about the grounds of the Illi- 

 nois Industrial school at Champaign. There had been 

 many ponds on those grounds ; now there were none. 

 Tiling there did not cost more than one-eighth of what it 

 did here. He had found it unsatisfactory to use small tiles. 

 About the number he would say, you must have enough to 

 drain well. His son had raised eighty bushels of corn per 

 acre from ground that was once a pond. He thought all 

 rolling ground could be benefited by the use of the drain 

 tile. We thought we could not get tile because they were 

 too dear, but when we got to wanting them very much 

 then we would make them. In laying, the first thing to be 

 done was to set your stakes ; an inch to the rod was enough 

 of a grade — but to be careful or it would fill up. Have it 

 level. Make the fall a little more if any thing going down 

 a grade ; to walk backwards as you laid the tile, and not to 

 get into the ditch after the tiles were laid. You wanted 



