) of a width for laying tile, was 25 cents per rod. At this
price, the industrious men, skillful with tools, earned $1.12 to
$1.25 per day, besides board; and they threw out one-third more
earth than was really necessary, for "room to work" as they said.
_But they labored hard, 14 hours per day._ The same men, working in
a soil free from stones, and an easier subsoil, would, in the same
time, open from 50 to 100 per cent. more length of ditch.

The greater part of these drains were laid four rods apart. When
first trying this distance upon a field, of which the soil was
called "springy and cold," and was always too wet in the Spring and
early Summer for plowing, a partial, rather than "thorough"
drainage was attempted, with the design, at some future day, to lay
intermediate drains. The execution of that design may yet appear
expedient, although the condition of soil already obtained, is
satisfactory beyond expectation.

Owing to the excess of water that saturated the soil in Spring and
Fall, the former proprietors of the farm had not attempted the
cultivation of the field alluded to, for many years. Originally
producing heavy crops of hay, it had been mowed for thirty years or
more, and was a good specimen of "exhausted land," yielding
one-half or three-fourths of a ton of hay per acre. This field is
designated in the plan, as the "barley field, 1858," lies
south-west of the dwelling-house, and contains nearly six acres.
Its northerly half, being the lower end of the field, was drained
in 1855, having been Summer-plowed, and sowed with buckwheat, which
was turned under, when in flower, as a fallow crop. The other half
was drained in 1856; plowed and subsoiled the same Fall. In 1857,
nearly the whole field was planted with roots--potatoes, rutabagas,
mangolds, carrots, English turnips, &c.--and one acre in corn. For
these crops, fair dressings of manure were applied--say ten or
twelve cartloads of barn-manure plowed in, and one hundred pounds
of either guano or bone-dust harrowed in, or strewed in the drill,
for each acre; about fifteen loads per acre of seasoned muck or
peat were also plowed in. There was a good yield of all the roots;
for the corn, the season was unfavorable. Last Spring, a light
dressing of manure, but all that we could afford,