dozen rods of covered stone drain. But the major has a home-made,
or, at least, home-devised, 'bull plow,' consisting of a
sharp-pointed iron wedge, or roller, surmounted by a broad, sharp
shank nearly four feet high, with a still sharper cutter in front,
and with a beam and handles above all. With five yoke of oxen
attached, this plow is put down through the soil and subsoil to an
average depth of three feet--in the course which the superfluous
water is expected and desired to take--and the field thus plowed
through and through, at intervals of two rods, down to three feet,
as the ground is more or less springy and saturated with water. The
cut made by the shank closes after the plow and is soon
obliterated, while that made by the roller, or wedge, at the
bottom, becomes the channel of a stream of water whenever there is
any excess of moisture above its level, which stream tends to clear
itself and rather enlarge its channel. From ten to twenty acres a
day are thus drained, and Major D. has such drains of fifteen to
twenty years' standing, which still do good service. In rocky
soils, this mode of draining is impracticable: in sandy tracts it
would not endure; but here it does very well, and, even though it
should hold good in the average but ten years, it would many times
repay its cost."

Major Dickinson himself in a recent address, thus speaks of what he
calls his

SHANGHAE PLOW.

"I will take the poorest acre of stubble ground, and if too wet for
corn in the first place, I will thoroughly drain it with a Shanghae
plow and four yoke of oxen in three hours.

"I will suppose the acre to be twenty rods long and eight rods
wide. To thoroughly drain the worst of your clay subsoil, it may
require a drain once in eight feet, and they can be made so cheaply
that I can afford to make them at that distance. To do so, will
require the team to travel sixteen times over the twenty rods
lengthwise, or one mile in three hours; two men to drive, one to
hold the plow, one to ride the beam, and one to carry the crow-bar,
pick up any large stones thrown out by going to the right or left,
and to help to carry around the plow, which is too heavy for the
other two to do quickly.

"The plow is quite simple in its construction, consisting of a
round piece