FRUIT-GROWING IN BROWN COUNTY. 407 
on about ten acres of land from not being able to sow them in 
season, in consequence of the land being too wet to plow. They 
were not sowed till June, and were totally destroyed by rust. 
The soil is a black sandy loam of about a foot in depth, with a 
clay sub-soil. In the fall of ’58, I made about 4,000 feet of 
covered ditches and 1,000 feet of open ditches. The following 
season, although the spring was wet and continued so till June, 
we were able to get in our seed in tolerable season. We 
planted the field with corn and carrots ; from nine acres we got 
about 800 bushels ears of corn, and from one acre 1,000 bush¬ 
els of carrots. The crop of corn would probably have been 
fifty per cent, greater, had not the early frosts rendered it ne¬ 
cessary to cut it up when not more than half or two-thirds of 
it was ripe. The water ran freely from all the ditches, but 
still from the nature of the soil, being extremely retentive of 
water, we were rather late in planting, particularly the carrots. 
I made my ditches in the following manner, having tried va¬ 
rious ways in order to ascertain the best. Of course, as they 
were only made in ’58, I cannot as yet determine which will 
be the most durable. 
1$£. I laid out my drains about thirty feet apart. Then 
ran my plow forward and back two or three times, then shov¬ 
eled out the loose dirt ; afterwards used the sub-soil plow till 
the ditches were two feet deep ; then finished digging with the 
spade. The breadth of my ditches at the top was about two 
feet ; at the bottom, six or eight inches. I used small oaks 
and pines about four inches through at the butt—a portion of 
the butt is sawed off for placing transversly in the drain about 
six inches above the bottom. The breadth of the drain at this 
t 
part may be assumed at nine inches, in which case the length 
of the cross bars will require to be about fifteen inches, so as 
to have three inches resting on each side and are to be placed in 
the drains at intervals of four feet apart ; they are forced 
firmly into their proper position by a few blows of a heavy mal¬ 
let or beetle, the workman taking care that they are all in 
the same plane or level. Any earth loosened from the sides in 
