"Although in some districts they are still employed, they can only be looked upon as a clumsy, and superficial plan of doing that which can be executed in a permanent and satisfactory manner, at a very small additional expense, now that draining-tiles are so cheap and plentiful."
Draining-tiles are not yet either cheap or plentiful in this country; but we have full faith that they will become so very soon. In the mean time it may be profitable for us to use such of the substitutes for them as may lie within our reach, selecting one or another according as material is convenient.
PLUG-DRAINING
has never been, that we are aware, practiced in America. Our knowledge of it is limited to what we learn from English books. We, therefore, content ourselves with giving from Morton's Cyclopedia the following description and illustrations.
"Plug-draining, like mole-draining, does not require the use of any foreign material—the channel for the water being wholly formed of clay, to which this kind of drain, like that last mentioned is alone suited.
"This method of draining requires a particular set of tools for its execution, consisting of, first, a common spade, by means of which the first spit is removed, and laid on one side; second, a smaller-sized spade, by means of which the second spit is taken out, and laid on the opposite side of the trench thus formed; third, a peculiar instrument called a bitting iron (Fig. [11]), consisting of a narrow spade, three and a half feet in length, and one and a half inches wide at the mouth and sharpened like a chisel; the mouth, or blade, being half an inch in thickness in order to give the necessary strength to so slender an implement. From the mouth, a, on the right-hand side, a ring of steel, b, six inches long and two and a half broad, projects at right angles; and on the left, at fourteen inches from the mouth, a tread, c, three inches long, is fitted.
Fig. 11.
"A number of blocks of wood, each one foot long, six inches high, and two inches thick at the bottom, and two and a half at the top, are next required. From four to six of these are joined together by pieces of hoop-iron let into their sides by a saw-draught, a small space being left between their ends, so that when completed, the whole forms a somewhat flexible bar, as shown in the cut, to one end of which a stout chain is attached. These blocks are wetted, and placed with the narrow end undermost, in the bottom of the trench, which should be cut so as to fit them closely; the clay which has been dug out is then to be returned, by degrees, upon the blocks, and rammed down with a wooden rammer three inches wide. As soon as the portion of the trench above the blocks, or plugs, has been filled, they are drawn forward, by means of a lever thrust through a link of the chain, and into the bottom of the drain for a fulcrum, until they are all again exposed, except the last one. The further portion of the trench, above the blocks, is now filled in and rammed, and so on the operations proceed until the whole drain is finished."