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 dioppcd 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 peculiai distribution ol 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 
idling 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 
