to pioneer farming, nor to a cheap and
temporary system. It involves capital and labor, and demands skill and
system. It cannot be patched up, like a brush fence, to answer the
purpose, from year to year, but every tile must be placed where it will
best perform its office for a generation. In England, the rule and the
habit in all things, is thoroughness and permanency; yet the first and
greatest mistake there in drainage was shallowness, and it has required
years of experiments, and millions of money, to correct that mistake.
If we commit the same folly, as we are very likely to do, we cannot
claim even the originality of the blunder, and shall be guilty of the
folly of pursuing the crooked paths of their exploration, instead of the
straight highway which they have now established. To be sure, the
controversy as to the depth of drains has by no means ceased in England,
but the question is reduced to this, whether the least depth shall be
three feet or four; one party contending that for certain kinds of clay,
a three-foot drain is as effectual as a four-foot drain, and that the
least effectual depth should be used, because it is the cheapest; while
the general opinion of the best scientific and practical men in the
kingdom, has settled down upon four feet as the minimum depth, where the
fall and other circumstances render it practicable. At the same time,
all admit that, in many cases, a greater depth than four feet is
required by true economy. It may seem, at first, that a controversy, as
to one additional foot in a system of drainage, depends upon a very
small point; but a little reflection will show it to be worthy of
careful consideration. Without going here into a nice calculation, it
may be stated generally as an established fact, that the excavation of a
ditch four feet deep, costs twice as much as that of a ditch three feet
deep. Although this may not seem credible to one who has not considered
the point, yet it will become more probable on examination, and very
clear, when the actual digging is attempted. Ditches for tiles are
always opened widest at top, with a gradual narrowing to near the
bottom, where they should barely admit the tile. Now, the addition of a
foot to the depth, is not, as it would perhaps at first appear, merely
the addition of the lowest and narrowest foot, but rather of the topmost
and widest foot. In other words, a four-foot ditch is precisely a
three-foot ditch in size and form, with an