Proceedings of Eighth Annual Meeting 131 



Where a ditch was to be started from the bank of a creek or river, 

 the tractor pulled the plow to the point, turned it around and by 

 pushing with the front axle on the "A" frame the plow was placed 

 into the creek or river, the cutting blades and the elevating board 

 dropped to a point where by being pulled with the cable would cut 

 the ditch from the outlet. We still, however, had to use the small 

 one-man spade to cut a starting ditch when that ditch started in the 

 open meadows, as for instance, the head of a ditch close to the 

 bottoms. The necessity for the use of a spade to dig even a small 

 starting ditch still left something to be desired and to eliminate 

 this five minutes loss, the question of a flexible point on the elevating 

 board was discussed. Many plans were drawn and discarded as 

 useless. Finally by resorting to more hinges the problem was 

 solved. When the elevating board is resting on the surface the 

 plow point points up at an angle of about 15 degrees. To make the 

 point dig into the meadow from the surface the point should point 

 downward about 15 degrees. To get the desired pitch to the plow 

 point a frame was constructed of angle, iron that would fit under 

 the elevating board. 



The bottom of this frame was hinged to the side cutting blades 

 and the top hinged to the skids in place of the elevating board. 

 The elevating board was then hinged to the side cutting blades at the 

 same point as the underframe. The lower hinge of the elevating 

 board is located 12 inches back of the piont, so by raising the back 

 of the elevating board the point will point downward. By holding 

 the board in this position the forward movement of the plow will 

 cause the point to dig into the meadow until it reaches a depth where 

 it will dig without having to hold the back end of the board up and 

 the board will come back into place by the weight of the sod. 



The final change has been used on the small spurring plow and 

 has proven satisfactory. It remains to be seen what it will do on 

 the larger one. If successful, it will finally do away with all hand 

 spades on a machine cut ditch. 



President Rider : Are there any questions to be asked of Mr. 

 Reiley? We have one other number on the program of this session 

 and that is, *'A Mechanical Cleaner for Salt Marsh Ditching," by 

 James E. Brooks, Chairman of the Engineering Committee on Ditch 

 Cleaning Machinery. 



James E. Brooks : In the beginning of mosquito control work on. 

 the salt marshes of New Jersey the drainage consisted almost entire- 

 ly of digging ditches, but sooner or later every ditch dug requires tO' 



