THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



227 



tion. In many situations on his own farm, he can- 

 not use them, for want of the proper outlets. Where 

 there are several small streams passing through a 

 farm, separating different hills from each other, 

 they form the most convenient places for discharg- 

 ing therein these hill-side furrows. Where such 

 streams are wanting, it may sometimes be found 

 convenient to discharge the ditches outside of the 

 plantation, in the woods, or on other uncultivated 

 lands. He had occasionally used, very advan- 

 tageously, old gullies that had been filled up with 

 bushes, and that had their bottoms protected from 

 washing by a thick growth of briers, grass, &c, 

 but only where it was practicable to take the water 

 off from the lower end of the gully by a graded 

 ditch to some stream, so as to avoid throwing the 

 water on the flat land below. 



So much as to the propriety of making such 

 ditches at all. Now as to the manner of doing it. 



He graded the lines for the furrows, he said, with 

 a common rafter level, which he supposed all were 

 familiar with, having the span twelve feet, and gave 

 a general fall to the furrow of two inches to each 

 span, increasing it occasionally to two and a half, 

 where the hill was steep and the turns short. If 

 the furroAV is to be emptied into a stream that de- 

 scends through the farm, the descent of the furrow 

 should be in the direction opposite to the descent 

 of the stream, so that the descending grade of the 

 one, and the ascending grade of the other, may 

 bring them together. If there is any particular 

 place on the slope designed to be furrowed, that is 

 especially desired to be protected from washing — 

 such as a partially cured gall — take the upper mar- 

 gin of this as a starting point, and grade descend- 

 ing both ways. When it is desirable to run a fur- 

 row as high up the hill as the outlet will permit, 

 the head of the stream or ravine designed to re- 

 ceive the discharge, must, of course, be made the 

 starting point, and the furrow be marked off upon 

 an ascending grade all the way. When a starting 

 point has been determined on, and you have pro- 

 vided yourself with a handful of small sticks, cut 

 about twelve or fifteen inches long, place one of 

 them at this point and one foot of your level by 

 the side of it, and move the other foot, until the 

 cord to which your plummet is attached indicates 

 a fall of two inches, then place another stick by 

 the side of that foot, and move the level forward, 

 placing the hind foot of the level precisely in the 

 place from which was moved the front one — and so 

 on to the end. When a line is thus marked off by 

 sticks stuck up at twelve feet from each other, it 

 will present a very zig-zag course, and one that it is 

 unnecessary to follow with the furrow exactly ; but, 

 by walking back on the line, and taking up half 

 the sticks and slightly moving others, you may pre- 

 serve the general grade without these numerous 

 sinuosities. Having thus laid down the line, run 

 three or four furrows of a plough along it, throw- 

 ing the slices down the hill, and then form the bank 

 by drawing out the loose earth with hoes, taking 

 care to make the top of the bank as level as possi- 

 ble, by drawing the earth backwards or forwards 

 along the bank, as may be required. In opening 

 the furrow, make it deepest at the upper side, or 

 next to the hill, so as to avoid as much as possible 

 the pressure of water against the bank. In furrow- 

 ing a steep hill-side the greatest care and attention 

 are necessary — more fall should be given, say 2'J 

 inches in twelve feet, at least, — more width, and 

 more depth of* the upper part of the furrow. For 

 the loose mass of earth, of which the bank is com- 

 8 H 



posed, being thrown on lower ground, will, at its 

 base, be as low as the level, and a portion of it 

 even below the bottom of the furrow, so as to ex- 

 pose it very much to be cut away by the current 

 that passes along the furrow, until the bank becomes 

 settled and sufficiently compact to resist abrasion. 



Mr. Wm. H. Harrison, of Amelia, was opposed to 

 the general use of hill-side ditches; 1st, because of 

 the various interruptions to the proper breaking up 

 of land which they cause. It is well known that a 

 hill can be ploughed better, and in shorter time, 

 when ploughed around, so that the furrow-slice is 

 always turned down the hill. But this is impossi- 

 ble, when the surface of the hill is cut up by a 

 succession of hill-side ditches. In this case, the 

 ploughing, of the hill has to be done in sections; 

 and in ploughing each section, half the furrows 

 must be thrown up the hill, and the ending furrow 

 left in the middle is almost certain to wash. It is 

 true, this may be obviated by ploughing across the 

 hill-side ditches ; but Mr. H. considered this as very 

 dangerous, by greatly weakening the bank of the 

 ditch, and greatly increasing the labor of keeping 

 it open. A second objection to hill-side ditches, 

 was the great difficulty of keeping them open, in 

 a country as much infested as this with running 

 briers. These scon choke the ditch, unless watched 

 with more care than most persons have time to be- 

 stow. The paths which cattle make across the 

 banks, and the burrowing of moles, constantly tend 

 to break them. Sdly. Whenever such break takes 

 place, from any cause, the injury by washing is 

 much greater than if the water had followed its 

 natural course. This is particularly the case where 

 there is a succession of ditches, one above the 

 other. In this case, a break in an upper ditch is 

 followed by a continuous break in all the lower 

 ones, and a deep gully is formed by a single rain. 

 4thly. The great difficulty of emptying these ditches 

 properly. If the streams or draining ditches, into 

 which the hill-side furrows empty, have any dis- 

 tance to pass through flat land, before they reach 

 the main stream, Mr. H. had always found such 

 lateral ditches filled up by the accumulated wash- 

 ings from the hills, thus brought down in a mass. 

 5thly. If the hill-side ditches be of considerable 

 length, this greatly increases the liability to break, 

 and its own tendency to wash into a gully. 



Mr. H. had once used these ditches very exten- 

 sively, but of late years had filled up most of them 

 with decided advantage. He still used them with 

 much advantage by the side of roads, and at the 

 foot of hills and gullies, to protect the subjacent 

 lands from the water and wash from above. In 

 other cases he thought they were a costly and dan- 

 gerous substitute for deep ploughing and sub-soil- 

 ing. Such was his experience. His observation 

 led to the same conclusions; as several of the worst 

 washed farms in the country were those on which 

 hill-side ditches had been longest and most exten- 

 sively used. 



Mr. William L. Booker, of Amelia, said he had 

 been using graduated ditches for fifteen or twenty 

 years, and an observer of them from the time of 

 their first introduction in the county of Amelia, by 

 Mr. William T. Eggleston, who then resided at 'the 

 Court House ; that at first he was opposed to them^ 

 but ultimately found that his objections were all 

 applicable to improper location or construction, or 

 negligent and improper management. He agreed 

 with Messrs. Old and Harvie as to the mode of con- 

 structing them. 



He preferred rather the bank to the ditch — and, 



