field below. Many persons locate
their ditch down in the centre of the wet level below the rise of
ground; this is of no use to the surface above, to the point where the
water springs. Locate the drain just at the point where the land begins
to be unduly wet. On very wet, level land, a small drain may also be
needed below the first and main one. The cost of a covered drain as
described above will be from fifty to seventy-five cents per rod, and an
uncovered one will cost from twenty to thirty cents. When you have low
swamps to drain, you can realize more than the cost of draining, by
carting the excavations upon other land, or into the barnyard as
material for compost. Perhaps no expenditure, on land needing it, pays
so well as thorough draining. It is important, for all fruit-orchards on
low land, to put a drain through under each row of trees: it is
indispensable to cherries, and highly favorable to all other fruits.

DUCKS.

There are a number of varieties, the wild Black Spanish, the
Canvass-Back, and the ordinary little duck of the farmyard, are all
good. The common duck is the only one we recommend for the American
poultry-yard. A close pasture, including a rivulet, or a small stream of
water, affords facilities for raising ducks at a cheap rate. From one
hundred to one thousand ducks may be raised in such an enclosure of an
acre or two, quite profitably. If there is plenty of grass, they will
still need a little grain. In the winter the cheapest feed is beets or
potatoes cut fine, with a very little grain. Each duck, well kept, will
lay from fifty to one hundred eggs, larger than hen's eggs, and about as
good for cooking purposes. They may be picked as geese, for live
feathers, though not quite so frequently. The feathers will nearly pay
for keeping, leaving the eggs and increase as profit.

DWARFING.

This has some advantages in its application to fruit-trees. It will
enable the cultivator to raise more fruit on a small plat of ground, to
get fruit much earlier than from standard trees, and sometimes, with
high cultivation, the fruit will be larger. Dwarfing is done by grafting
into small slow-growing stocks. Almost all fruits have such kinds.
Grafting into other stocks, as the pear into the foreign quince, is a
very effectual method. The Paradise stock for the apple, the Canada and
other slow-growing stocks for the plum, the dwarf wild cherry of Europe
and the Mahaleb for cherries. Dwarfs produced by g