g it of the consistency of mortar,
and making it difficult to haul out the manure, and everyway
disagreeable.

One more effort was made to dry this part. A drain was opened from the
highway, which passes the barn, to the south corner; and about two and a
half feet below the bottom of the cellar, along inside the wall, at
about three feet distance from it, on two of the sides; and another in
the same way, across the middle of the cellar. These, laid with two-inch
tiles, and filled with gravel, were connected together, and led off to
the wayside. The waste water of two watering places, one in the cellar,
and another outside, supplied by an aqueduct, was conducted into the
tiles, and thus quietly disposed of. The reason why the drains are
filled with gravel is, that as the soft clay, in which the tiles were
laid, could never have the heat of the direct rays of the sun on its
surface, there might be no cracking of it, sufficient to afford passage
for the water, and so this was made a catch-water to stop any water that
might attempt to cross it.

The work was finished last Autumn, and we have had but the experience of
a single season with it; but we are satisfied that the object is
attained. The surface of the implement cellar, which before, had been
always soft and muddy, has ever since been as dry and solid as a highway
in Summer; and the root cellar, which has a cemented bottom, is as dry
as the barn floor. The manure can now be teamed out, without leaving a
rut, and we are free to confess, that the effect is greater than we had
deemed possible.

The following cut will show at a glance, how all the drains are laid,
the dotted lines representing the tile drains:

[Illustration: Fig. 100.]

The drain outside the barn, on the right, leads from a spring, some two
hundred feet off, into the cellar and into the yard, and supplies water
to the cattle, at the points indicated. The waste water is then
conducted into the drains, and passes off.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DRAINAGE OF SWAMPS.

Vast Extent of Swamp Lands in the United States.--Their
Soil.--Sources of their Moisture.--How to Drain them.--The Soil
Subsides by Draining.--Catch-water Drains.--Springs.--Mr. Ruffin's
Drainage in Virginia.--Is there Danger of Over-draining?

In almost, if not quite every State, extensive tracts of swamp lands are
found, not only unfit, in their natural condition, for cultivation, but,
in many instances, by reaso