en in English treatises, and found perfectly practicable
there, with proper drainage-tools, will seem to us exceedingly narrow.
Mr. Parkes gives the width of the top of a four-foot drain 18 inches,
of a three-and-a-half foot drain 16 inches, and of a three-foot drain 12
inches. He gives the width of drains for tiles, three inches at bottom,
and those for stones, eight inches. Of the cost of excavating a given
number of cubic yards of earth from drains, it is difficult to give
reliable estimates. In the writer's own field, where a pick was used to
loosen the lower two feet of earth, the labor of opening and filling
drains 4 feet deep, and of the mean width of 14 inches, all by hand
labor, has been, in a mile of drains, being our first experiments, about
one day's labor to three rods in length. The excavated earth of such a
drain, measures not quite three cubic yards. (Exactly, 2.85.)

In work subsequently executed, we have opened our drains of 4 foot
depth, but 20 inches at top, and 4 inches at bottom, giving a mean width
of 12 inches. In one instance, in the Summer of 1858, two men opened 14
rods of such drain in one day. In six days, the same two men opened,
laid, and filled 947 feet, or about 57-1/2 rods of such drain. Their
labor was worth $12.00, or 21 cents per rod. The actual cost of this job
was as follows:

847 two-inch tiles, at $13 per 1,000 $11.01
100 three-inch " " for main 2.50
70 bushels of tan, to protect the joints .70
Horse to haul tiles and tan .50
Labor, 12 days, at $1 12.00
-------
Total $26.71

This is 46-1/2 cents per rod, besides our own time and skill in laying out
and superintending the work. The work was principally done with Irish
spades, and was in a sandy soil. In the same season, the same men
opened, laid, and filled 70 rods of four-foot drain, of the same mean
width of 12 inches, in the worst kind of clay soil, where the pick was
constantly used. It cost 35 days' labor to complete the job, being 50
cents per rod for the labor alone. The least cost of the labor of
draining 4 feet deep, on our own land, is thus shown to be 21 cents per
rod, and the greatest cost 50 cents per rod, all the labor being by
hand. One-half these amounts would have completed the drains at 3 feet
depth, as has been already shown.

But the excavat