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will make tributary drains in connection, and be will have an eye to the 
destruction of the waste or drained-off waters. A neighbor of mine in 
England laid out his drains on so intelligent a principle, that the drainings 
of his fields were all conducted to his farm yard, where he had a con- 
% 
tinual stream of water derived from the drainage of his lands—of course 
his farm buildings were so placed that the level ran out of them. In 
making drains especial care must be taken to cut them clean and to give 
the bottom a level and regular course, there must be no promiscuous 
spading—three feet deep, running in from the top three feet to a foot or 
more at the bottom, and that bottom level and clean ; pipes made for the 
purpose must be placed along the line of drain. Machines are in use in 
this country, for the manufacture of such, and wherever they are made, 
the cost is so moderate as to render them the very best means of carrying 
off the water ; failing to obtain these, a drain may be made of stones, and 
the limestone of this State would make excellent conduits. It is easily con¬ 
structed of flat stones, and if they are all flat which are placed at the bot¬ 
tom and sides, supporting a roof, and giving a channel or conduit of 6 or 
£ inches they will answer the purpose, and will last a long lifetime ; brush 
and straw can be used and is used but only, I conceive, when stones 
cannot be had, for it is obvious that drains so made must be liable, from 
the rotting of the material, to choke up and render the labors of the 
farmer abortive ; he may have many rods to take up in search of such 
a casualty, as the stopping up of a drain without finding out the cause. 
But tiles made by machines are the groat desideratum, the joints allowing 
water to penetrate to the channels, and so affording to the land the fine 
percolating process of rain penetrating the whole earth, leaving in it all 
that is valuable, and then running off freed from these properties, as water 
to fulfil its next purpose of giving direct support to all animal existence. 
That rain refreshes and fertilizes the earth, and that in the absence of rain 
the natural products of the earth sicken and die are truisms almost unne¬ 
cessary to be repeated. But that marshes are to be valued for their 
growth of watery plants, and that innutritious grass is to be supported 
against cultivated grasses, is an error so great as to need the strongest 
reprehension. In springy ground which occurs in elevated as well as low 
land, all that is necessary is to tap the spring, put in your drain, exca¬ 
vate to the depth of three or five feet, as may be required to take off the 
water, and take that drain in a strait line to your level; if the land is 
