AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
221 
every one whose home is beyond the smoke and 
grime of the city, ought to surround himself with 
all that can add to his domestic pleasures, we 
shall, at another time, talk of Peacocks and Guinea 
hens—possibly of honey bees and terrier dogs, and 
the fish pond, all of which we have had about us— 
and shall continue to complete the population of 
a full country establishment. 
MECHANICAL PREPARATION OE THE SOIL- 
NO. VI-DRAINING. 
[Continued from page 199.] 
In order to make our articles as complete as 
possible, we continue a brief description of the 
various modes adopted for draining. Those 
referred to in the first two columns below have 
been practiced in Great Britain, though but little 
known in this country. We have for several 
reasons reserved to the closing chapters of this 
subject the fuller discussion of stone-drains, and 
especially of tile-drains which are soon to be one 
of the prominent features of agricultural improve¬ 
ment in this country. 
Sheep Drains. —In permanent grass lands, it 
is often profitable to make small open drains. On 
hilly land, one method is to run at short intervals 
a number of furrows along the sides of the hills, 
with a gradual descent towards the base. The 
lower side of the drain, formed by the turning 
down of the furrow, is then rounded off with a 
spade or shovel, the upper edge of the furrow 
being also sloped at the same time; and the 
whole drain is then seeded over with grass. 
Such drains will gradually conduct the water to 
the bottom of the hill without producing serious 
injury by washing, and with little loss of surface. 
They are only practicable in sheep pastures, 
and are hence called sheep drains. Larger ani¬ 
mals would soon tramp down the sides of the 
drains and destroy them. Another kind of sheep 
drain is shown in the following figure • 
two edges, till it leaves the space shown at b. A 
part of the remaining earth is then returned into 
the ditch, and slightly rounded to make up for any 
loss from settling. 
In figure 8, we have 
a modification of the 
same kind of drain, 
adapted only to a hard 
clay subsoil, so com¬ 
pact that the sides of 
Big. 6. 
The original surface of the soil upon the side 
hill is shown by the dark strip through the middle. 
A portion of the earth has been removed from 
a, and turned over upon the down hill side at b. 
Where the sides are made sufficiently slanting 
these drains may answer a temporary good pur¬ 
pose, or even a permanent one on sheep pastures. 
A covered sheep drain is sometimes construct¬ 
ed as represented in the following figure. 
the open space o will 
retain their place. 
Above this is a layer of 
peat, with the culti¬ 
vated soil r, over it. 
There are few cases 
where either of the 
kinds of drains here Fig. 8. 
described would be permanent enough to pay 
the expense of construction. The washing of 
water, the digging of moles and mice, and even 
the light tread of sheep will be likely to injure, 
and soon render them worse than useless. 
Bog Drains. —These are not unlike the last 
named and are often 
useful where a tough 
bog or moss rests 
upon clay. They are 
formed by cutting 
a heavy square 
piece of tffrfe Je(fig. 
from the top, and 
the smaller pieces, 
a, c, c. The narrow 
channel d, is then 
the clay, 
the shoul- 
e, e, four to six 
inches broad. The 
first piece taken out 
is then inverted over 
' - '• ttmmm-: d, and the other por¬ 
tion then put in as 
shown in the upper 
Fig- 9. part of the figure. 
Such drains have sometimes been sunk to the 
depth of six feet. Where moss bog to be so 
is very open or spongy, a cutting of only 
IT to 2 feet should be made at a time, and teen 
wait a few months for the water to drain and the 
to settle, when another similar cutting may be 
After the ditch is completed it should also 
be left a few months until the ground is dry 
and compacted, when the filling may be put in. 
There are probably few places where such drains 
would be profitable, since any want of compact¬ 
ness in the turf or clay around d, or the occur¬ 
rence of any little beds or veins of sand or loose 
earth, would cause them soon to fill up. In many 
cases it would be found preferable to line the 
sides of d with wood, tile or stone, resting upon 
a thick board or a plank at the bottom. 
This drain 
is made by 
cutting a 
ditch about 
n e and a 
half feet deep 
of the 
same width 
at the surface 
contracting it 
;. 7. to about half 
a foot in width at the bottom. The first sod is 
carefully cut out entire and laid aside ; the rest of 
the soil is next thrown out, and the sod then re¬ 
turned and pressed down by tramping upon its 
Peat-tilc-drains are sometimes used where 
compact clay bottom can not be 
reached. These, as shown in fig. 
10, are made by placing together 
two pieces of turf a and b. It will 
be seen that by inverting the up¬ 
per upon the lower piece the 
rounded portion b will fit into the 
opening in the upper side of a. 
With a peculiar shaped cutting tool 
made expressly for the purpose, 
these tiles are cut off from the end of a piece o 
turf, the cutting of one piece making the half-cir¬ 
cular opening in the next. It is stated that witi 
proper tools a man will cut &,000 to 3,000 of thes< 
peat-tiles in a day. The peculiar advantages of 
this sort of drains are, that they can be constructed 
where the bog is not solid enough to support a tile or 
stone drain; and they may also be cheaply made, 
as all the materials are at hand for their construc¬ 
tion. Besides the peculiar tool required for the 
peat-tiles, and a common edging knife for trim- 
ing the sides, the three implements next shown 
are useful, not only for the drains already referred 
to, but also for several kinds yet to be described. 
I® 
11 12 13 
Fig. 11, is a long tapering spade, with an 
iron spur placed any where upon the handle for the 
foot to rest upon in pushing the implement down ; 
figs. 12 and 13 are simply long-handled, narrow 
scoops for clearing out the bottom of drains. 
Well Drains.— This method of draining is 
very uselul in some special localities, where there 
are wet spots resulting from particular arrange¬ 
ments of the soil and sub-soil The following 
figure will give an idea of one of these cases. 
s, is a somewhat porous surface soil. Below 
this c, is a compact layer of clay, impervious to 
water; o, is *n open porous soil below the clay, 
which may have some near or distant outlet, so 
as to be comparatively dry at all times of the 
year. It is evident that in the hollows, w, w, the 
water will collect and remain, producing a wet 
spot even in the porous surface soil. If at w, we 
dig a small well or opening through the clay, and 
fill it up with loose stones covered over a little 
above the clay with turf, shavings or straw to 
keep the spaces between the stones from being 
filled up with loose dirt, it is plain that the water 
before held in the hollows by the clay, will now 
flow away through the open soil o. Cases like this 
arc bp no means uncommon. 
If a valley is large, and there is no other con¬ 
venient outlet, drains may be made down its 
sides, conveying water into a large well drqm in 
