Y.

There was nothing among the devices exhibited at this convention that
attracted more attention or received more favorable private comment than
a model of Chamberlin Brothers' Patent Apparatus for Tiling. The model
only was shown, but working machines are in operation in Iowa, and they
are giving excellent satisfaction, as attested by such men as Thos. B.
Wales, Jr., of Iowa City, and Daniel H. Wheeler, Secretary of the
Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. The apparatus is upon the old
principle of the mole ditcher requiring the same capstan power. One team
is sufficient to run it. The apparatus is composed of a beam or sill,
horizontal in position, and a coulter seven feet long at the rear end of
the beam, and perpendicular to it a spirit level attached to the beam,
aids in regulating. The coulter can be run anywhere from one to five
feet deep. The front end of the beam is provided with a mud or stone
boat to prevent sinking in the mud, and with a jack screw for regulating
on uneven ground. Attached to it, and following the mole, is a carrier
200 feet long, made concave in form. On this the tile are laid and
carried into the ground. A start is made at an open ditch or hole of
required depth; when the carrier is drawn in full length a hole is dug
just back of the coulter, two by three feet, down to the tile, a stop
placed in front of the tile, the machine is started which draws the
carrier from under the tile, when it is again located as before, and so
on. Different sized moles are used according to the size of the tile to
be laid. Any one can easily count up the advantages of this mode of
laying tile, provided the machine can do the work it is claimed to do,
and of this there seems to be no question, if we may believe the
testimony of those who have seen it in operation.

DRAINAGE LAWS.

The following by Senator Whiting, of Bureau county, was read by the
Secretary:

Illinois is a good State as nature made her, and drainage is destined to
add wealth almost inestimable. Drainage enterprises are everywhere
seen--in extent from the small work beginning and ending in the same
field, to the levees of Sny Carte, and the canal-like channels through
the Winnebago swamps. Drainage is naturally divided into two classes:

1. Individual drainage, where the land-owner has his own outlet
independent of others.

2. Combined drainage where one can not drain without joining with
others.

The smallest of these combined works