hrough the walls, or rises at the bottom, by means of little
ditches scooped out in the surface.

In some districts, people seem to have little idea of drains, even for
cellars; and on flat land, endeavor to set their houses high enough to
have their cellars above ground. This, besides being extremely
inconvenient for passage out of, and into the house, often fails to make
a dry cellar, for the water from the roof runs in, and causes a flood.
And such accidents, as they are mildly termed by the improvident
builders, often occur by the failure of drains imperfectly laid.

No child, who ever saw a cellar afloat, during one of these inundations,
will ever outgrow the impression. You stand on the cellar stairs, and
below is a dark waste of waters, of illimitable extent. By the dim
glimmer of the dip-candle, a scene is presented which furnishes a
tolerable picture of "chaos and old night," but defies all description.
Empty dry casks, with cider barrels, wash-tubs, and boxes, ride
triumphantly on the surface, while half filled vinegar and molasses
kegs, like water-logged ships, roll heavily below. Broken boards and
planks, old hoops, and staves, and barrel-heads innumerable, are
buoyant with this change of the elements; while floating turnips and
apples, with, here and there, a brilliant cabbage head, gleam in this
subterranean firmament, like twinkling stars, dimmed by the effulgence
of the moon at her full. Magnificent among the lesser vessels of the
fleet, "like some tall admiral," rides the enormous "mash-tub," while
the astonished rats and mice are splashing about at its base in the dark
waters, like sailors just washed, at midnight, from the deck, by a heavy
sea.

The lookers-on are filled with various emotions. The farmer sees his
thousand bushels of potatoes submerged, and devoted to speedy
decay; the good wife mourns for her diluted pickles, and apple sauce,
and her drowned firkins of butter; while the boys are anxious to embark
on a raft or in the tubs, on an excursion of pleasure and discovery.

To avoid such scenes as the above, every cellar which is not upon a dry
sandbank, should be provided with a drain of some kind, which will be at
all times, secure.

For a main drain from the cellar, four or six-inch tiles are abundantly
sufficient, and where they can be reasonably obtained, much cheaper than
stone. The expense of excavation, of hauling stone, and of laying them,
will make the expense of a stone drain f