FOOD FOIt TLANTS, ETC. 
311 
this tile, and the mannerof laying them in thetrench. 
You will perceive that the tiies are laid upon flat 
tiles, called soles, and this is brought to your notice, 
because in this country, drains have been made with- 
out any support for the tile, where the bottom has 
been a hard clay. This practice does well for a 
few years, but it must be evident, that if the drains 
ever carry a rapid run of water, the tiles must in- 
evitably sink, more or less, by the wearing of the 
Form of a Draining Tile. — Fig. 79. 
bottom, and thus in time destroy the drain. To pre- 
vent this mischief, soles are made of convenient 
widths and lengths on which to set the tiles, taking 
care to avoid placing the joints in contact, by which 
arrangement the tile has a firm and uniform bear- 
ing. Having your tiles conveniently placed along 
the trench, they must be laid with due care, first 
cleansing the trench, so that the soles may lay 
solid. The tiles being laid, it is best to cover the 
whole with a turf sod, and fill the trench by means 
of your plow or shovel, as may be most conve- 
nient. Many use straw to cover the tiles, but a turf 
cut about 18 inches long and 12 inches wide, will 
just lit and perfectly cover them, with the grass side 
down. The larger and smaller drains are all thus 
constructed, and when properly made, will never 
need repairs, nor further attention. 
You must have noticed, that, for thorough drain- 
ing, the trenches are directed to be dug at distances 
thirty feet apart ; and this is probably the greatest 
distance at which drains will act so as to draw the 
water from the earth. In this respect we must be 
guided by the character of the soil, and experience 
will probably teach us that a distance of forty feet 
is an extreme limit for very thorough draining. 
This is the method of draining now so exten- 
sively used in other countries, and about to be ex- 
tensively adopted in our own ; and these tiles are 
found to be far superior to masonry, to stone, to 
wood, or any other kind of drain hitherto tried. 
It is this system or method which has enabled the 
farmers of England and Scotland, of late years, to 
raise twice the number of bushels of wheat from 
an acre, more than we can do. — Transactions of N. 
Y. State Society, for 1848. 
TO DRIVE AWAY EATS AND CROWS. 
I presume that many of your readers are trou- 
bled with rats in their barns, granaries, corn houses, 
&c. If they wish to get rid of them, let them 
procure a lively raccoon, which will not kill them 
but frighten them away. This is an easier and 
much better way to get rid of these pests than by 
poisoning, as then, they retire to their holes to die 
and create a smell anything but .pleasant. 
During the spring, the crows were very trouble- 
some on the corn fields. I noticed that they did 
not meddle with the corn near the woods, but 
almost always pulled it up in open ground. Con- 
sequently, I chopped some brush and made a small 
booth in a corn field, and then fired off a gun and 
went to the house. After that, they did not pull 
up any more corn. All the corn planted in this 
field was rolled in tar and plaster. The crows 
would not eat it, but pulled it up to see if it was 
good. Frank. 
Oneida Co., N. Y, August 30th, 1849. 
INTERESTING- EXPERIMENT WITH PERUVIAN 
GUANO AND OTHER MANURES. 
The following is the result of an experiment to 
test the comparative efficacy of five different kinds 
of artificial manure in improving pond mud, the 
experiment being made on an acre of inferior pas- 
ture land, in Stover Park, England, by E. S. Bearne, 
in the years 1847-8-9. 
The land on which the experiment was conduct- 
ed, is of uniform quality, the soil being a light, sandy 
loam a few inches in depth, incumbent on a stratum 
of white clay. It underwent thorough draining in 
1844, prior to which, it would not produce a rent of 
more than 5s. an acre. No manures were applied 
to the land in 1848 nor 1849. The object sought to 
be attained, by extending the experiment over a 
period of three years, was to test the durability of 
the different manures. 
Manures applied in 
1847. 
1. Six cubic j'ards of mud, 
mixed with six cwt. 
of salt — cost of ma- 
nure 14s 
312 
2. Six cubic yards of mud, 
mixed with 1}^ hogs- 
heads of lime — cost i 
13s. 6d |353 
3. Six cubic j'ards of mud, 
mixed with three bush, 
of bone dust — cost 14s. 
3d 511 
4. Three cubic yards of 
mud, mixed with three I 
cubic yards of tan- \ 
yard refuse — cost 14s.. 524 
5. Six cubic yards of mud, 
mixed with ninety lbs. 
of Peruvian euano — I 
cost 14s 930 
327 
sca::is 
of 3 
cwt. 
IVz 
S §Sj2 %% 
seams seams 
of 3 of 3 
cwt. cwt. 
m 
N. B. — The after-grass, in 1S47, was stocked with sheep, but in 
1S43, it was left unconsumed. 
The Food of Plants. — Most of our cultivated 
plants and trees derive their support from the earth 
as well as from the atmosphere. This was long 
thought to be otherwise, from the circumstance that 
Van Helmont planted a willow, five pounds in 
weight, in a pot filled with dry earth, and covered 
with a perforated sheet of tin. This earth he sup- 
plied with rain water. In five years, the willow 
was increased to 169 lbs. 3 oz. The earth, on 
being taken out of the pot, at the end of that 
period, dried, and reweighed, suffered no percepti- 
ble loss. Those who contended that the increase 
of the willow was derived solely from the rain 
water and the air, did not take into account the 
liability of dust to fall into the pot through the 
holes in the tin, nor the amount of mineral matter 
contained in the rain, with which the tree was 
watered, both of which, doubtless, contributed to 
its growth. 
