ient, will really expend for such labor. Few farm
operations would pay expenses, if every hour of superintendence, and
every hour of labor by man and boy and beast, were set down at this high
rate.

The cost of the tiles will, ordinarily, be a cash item, and the labor
may be performed like that of planting, hoeing, haying, and harvesting,
by such "help" hired by the mouth or day, or rendered by the family, as
may be found convenient.

The cost of drainage may be considered conveniently, to borrow a
clerical phrase, "under the following heads."

1. _Laying out, or Engineering._--In arranging our Spring's work, we
devote time and attention to laying it out, though this hardly forms an
item in the expense of the crop. Most farmers may think themselves
competent to lay out their drainage-works, without paying for the
scientific skill of an engineer, or even of a surveyor.

It is believed, however, that generally, it will be found true economy,
to procure the aid of an experienced engineer, if convenient, to lay out
the work at the outset. Certainly, in most cases, some skill in the use
of levelling instruments, at least, is absolutely essential to
systematic work. No man, however experienced, can, by the eye, form any
safe opinion of the fall of a given tract of land. Fields which appear
perfectly level to the eye, will be found frequently to give fall enough
for the deepest drainage. The writer recently had occasion to note this
fact on his own land.

A low wet spot had many times been looked at, as a place which should be
drained, both to improve its soil, and the appearance of the land about
it; but to the eye, it seemed doubtful whether it was not about as low
as the stream some forty rods off, into which it must be drained. Upon
testing the matter carefully with levelling instruments, it was found
that from the lowest spot in this little swamp, there was a fall of
seven and a half feet to the river, at its ordinary height! Again, there
are cases where it will be found upon accurate surveys, that the fall is
very slight, so that great care will be requisite, to lay the drains in
such a way that the descent may be continuous and uniform.

Without competent skill in laying out the work, land-owners will be
liable not only to errors in the fall of the drains, but to very
expensive mistakes in the location of them. A very few rods of drains,
more than are necessary, would cost more than any charge of a competent
pers