274 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
with a pile or post auger. If a stratum of saud or gravel, 
which will absorb water, is reached at a reasonable depth, 
saj not more than forty feet, this plan may be adopted. Three 
or four wells, equally distributed as to distance will be ample 
to drain a mile of road. If the wells are to be stoned with 
rough stones, they should be excavated six feet in diameter, 
and the depth continued three feet below the surface of the 
stratum which is found to absorb water. The rough stone 
wall may be laid dry, but the stones should extend from the 
inner face to the bank, the smaller ends forming the inner face, 
thus forming a complete arch of every layer of stones. The 
wells may all be on one side of the road, or a portion of them 
on each side, and they should be covered with a strong lattice 
of cast iron, with meshes about two inches square. 
The gutters should fall each way toward the wells, and the 
low places in the gutters on the other side of the road should 
be opposite the wells. At each of these low points a well 
a foot or two in depth should be excavated and stoned up. 
A tile, or a stone drain, with good fall should connect the shal¬ 
low with the deep well. The greater the fall in these cross 
drains, the smaller may the conduit be, and the less the lia¬ 
bility to clog. A slight circular depression should be made in 
the bottom of the surface gutters around the wells, in which the 
sediment in the drainage water may be deposited before it 
flows into the wells. It sometimes occurs that the water, not 
being carried off rapidly enough, will rise up to, and even 
above, the top of the well; but this is rare, and the foregoing 
mode will generally provide satisfactory drainage under the 
circumstances described. When practicable, the surface 
gutters conveying the water to streams, or to ravines, may be 
of more simple and of preferable construction. Where the 
water is to be conveyed a long distance, say half a mile in one 
direction, a fall of three inches to one hundred feet will 
answer. This will require the gutter to be six’^feet eight inches 
in depth at the discharge end. The bottom of the gutters 
must be smooth and graded with accuracy. The angle of the 
slope of the banks should not exceed thirty-five degrees. 
