d crop at six to ten bushels (wheat) per statute acre."

These are estimates made upon lands that had already been under
cultivation. In addition to such lands as are merely rendered less
productive by surplus water, we have, even on our hard New England
farms--on side hills, where springs burst out, or at the foot of
declivities, where the land is flat, or in runs, which receive the
natural drainage of higher lands--many places which are absolutely unfit
for cultivation, and worse than useless, because they separate those
parts of the farm which can be cultivated. If, of these wet portions, we
make by draining, good, warm, arable land, it is not a mere question of
per centage or profit; it is simply the question whether the land, when
drained, is worth more than the cost of drainage. If it be, how much
more satisfactory, and how much more profitable it is, to expend money
in thus reclaiming the waste places of our farms, and so uniting the
detached fields into a compact, systematic whole, than to follow the
natural bent of American minds, and "annex" our neighbor's fields by
purchasing.

Any number of instances could be given of the increased value of lands
in England by drainage, but they are of little practical value. The
facts, that the Government has made large loans in aid of the process,
that private drainage companies are executing extensive works all over
the kingdom, and that large land-holders are draining at their own cost,
are conclusive evidence to any rational mind, that drainage in Great
Britain, at least, well repays the cost of the operation.

In another chapter may be found accurate statements of American farmers
of their drainage operations, in different States, from which the reader
will be able to form a correct opinion, whether draining in this country
is likely to prove a profitable operation.

CHAPTER V.

VARIOUS METHODS OF DRAINAGE.

Open Ditches.--Slope of Banks.--Brush Drains.--Ridge and
Furrow.--Plug-Draining.--Mole-Draining.--Mole-Plow.--Wedge and
Shoulder Drains.--Larch Tubes.--Drains of Fence Rails, and
Poles.--Peat Tiles.--Stone Drains Injured by Moles.--Downing's
Giraffes.--Illustrations of Various Kinds of Stone Drains.

OPEN DITCHES.

The most obvious mode of getting rid of surface-water is, to cut a ditch
on the surface to a lower place, and let it run. So, if the only object
were to drain a piece of land merely for a temporary purpose--as, w