DRAINS.
Drains are of two kinds—under-drains and surface-drains. The latter are simply open ditches to carry off surface-water, that might otherwise stand long enough to destroy the prospective crop. These are frequently useful along at the foot of hills, when they should be proportioned to the extent of the surface above them. They are also very useful on low, level meadow-lands. Properly constructed, they will reclaim low swamps, and make them excellent land. Millions of acres of land in the United States, as good as any we have, are lying useless, and spreading pestilence around, that by this simple method of ditching might be turned to most profitable account. The direction of these drains should be determined by the shape of the land to be drained by them—straight whenever they will answer the purpose, but crooked when they will do better. On low and very level land, they should be not more than five rods apart; they should be three times as wide at the top as they are at the bottom, and as deep as the width at the top; made so slanting, the sides will not fall in;—they should be so shaped as to allow only a very gentle flow of the water: if it flows too rapidly, it will wash down the sides, and obstruct the ditch, and waste the land. Excavations for under-draining are made in the same way, only the top need not be so much wider than the bottom; it would be a waste of labor in excavating a useless quantity of earth. There are four methods of filling up the ditch, viz., with brush; with small stones thrown in promiscuously; with a throat laid in the bottom and filled with small stones; and with a throat made of tile from the pottery. In all cases, that with which the ditch is filled must not come so near the surface as to be reached by the plow. Brush, put in green and covered with straw or leaves, will answer a good purpose for several years, and may be used where small stones can not easily be obtained. The tile is more expensive than either of the others, and not so good as the stones; it is so tight that the water does not enter it so readily; and if by any chance dirt gets into the throat, it obstructs it, and there is no other channel through which the water can pass off. Small stones thrown in promiscuously serve a good purpose for a long time, if they be covered with straw or cornstalks before the earth is put in. But the best method is to make a throat, six inches square, in the bottom of the drain, laying the large stones over the top of it, and filling in the small stones above, and covering with straw;—the water will find its way into the throat through the numerous openings; and if the throat should ever be filled, the water could still pass off between the small stones above. Such drains will last many years, and add one half to the products of all wet springy land. The earth over the new drain should be six inches higher than the surface of the field, that, when well settled, it may be level. Leave no places open for surface-water to run in; that would soon fill up and ruin a drain. Drains made to carry off spring-water are often useless by being in a wrong location. Springs come out near the foot of rising ground. Just where they come out should be the location of the drain, which would then carry off the water and prevent it from saturating and chilling the soil in the field below. Many persons locate their ditch down in the centre of the wet level below the rise of ground; this is of no use to the surface above, to the point where the water springs. Locate the drain just at the point where the land begins to be unduly wet. On very wet, level land, a small drain may also be needed below the first and main one. The cost of a covered drain as described above will be from fifty to seventy-five cents per rod, and an uncovered one will cost from twenty to thirty cents. When you have low swamps to drain, you can realize more than the cost of draining, by carting the excavations upon other land, or into the barnyard as material for compost. Perhaps no expenditure, on land needing it, pays so well as thorough draining. It is important, for all fruit-orchards on low land, to put a drain through under each row of trees: it is indispensable to cherries, and highly favorable to all other fruits.