n.
Yet, in a larger view of the case, its collateral advantages are of even
greater moment than its mere profits. It is the foundation and the
commencement of the most intelligent farming. It opens the way for other
improvements, which, without it, would produce only doubtful or temporary
benefits; and it enables the farmer so to extend and enlarge his
operations, with fair promise of success, as to raise his occupation from
a mere waiting upon the uncertain favors of nature, to an intelligent
handling of her forces, for the attainment of almost certain results.

The rude work of an unthinking farmer, who scratches the surface soil with
his plow, plants his seed, and trusts to the chances of a greater or less
return, is unmitigated drudgery,--unworthy of an intelligent man; but he
who investigates all of the causes of success and failure in farming, and
adapts every operation to the requirements of the circumstances under
which he works; doing everything in his power that may tend to the
production of the results which he desires, and, so far as possible,
avoiding everything that may interfere with his success,--leaving nothing
to chance that can be secured, and securing all that chance may offer,--is
engaged in the most ennobling, the most intelligent and the most
progressive of all industrial avocations.

In the cultivation of retentive soils, drainage is the key to all
improvement, and its advantage is to be measured not simply by the effect
which it directly produces in increasing production, but, in still greater
degree, by the extent to which it prepares the way for the successful
application of improved processes, makes the farmer independent of weather
and season, and offers freer scope to intelligence in the direction of his
affairs.

CHAPTER VIII. - HOW TO MAKE DRAINING TILES.

Draining tiles are made of burnt clay, like bricks and earthen-ware.

In general terms, the process is as follows:--The clay is mixed with sand,
or other substances which give it the proper consistency, and is so wetted
as to form a plastic mass, to which may be given any desired form, and
which is sufficiently stiff to retain its shape. Properly prepared clay is
forced through the aperture of a die of the shape of the outside of the
tile, while a plug,--held by a support in the rear of the die,--projects
through the aperture, and gives the form to the bore of the tile. The
shape of the material of the tile, as it comes fr