What can an Irishman do with a chopping ax, and what cannot a Yankee do with it? Who ever saw a Scotchman or an Irishman who could not cut a straight ditch with a spade, and who ever saw a Yankee who could or would cut a ditch straight with any tool? One man works best with a long-handled spade, another prefers a short handle; one drives it into the earth with his right foot, another with his left. A laboring man, in general, works most easily with such tools as he is accustomed to handle; while theorizing implement-makers, working out their pattern by the light of reason, may produce such a tool as a man _ought_ to work with, without adapting it at all to the capacity or taste of the laborer. A man should be measured for his tools, as much as for his garment, and not be expected to fit himself to another's notions more than to another's coat. If the land-owner proposes to act as his own engineer, the first instrument he will want to use is a SPIRIT LEVEL, or some other contrivance by which he may ascertain the variations of the surface of his field. The natural way for a Yankee to get at the grades is to _guess_ at them, and this, practically, is what is usually done. Ditches are opened where there appears to be a descent, and if there is water running, the rise is estimated by its current; and if there is no water rising in the drain, a bucketfull is occasionally poured in to guide the laborer in his work. No one who has not tested the accuracy, or, rather, inaccuracy, of his judgment, as to the levels of fields, can at all appreciate the deceitfulness of appearances on this point. The human eye will see straight; but it will not see level without a guide. It forms conclusions by comparison; and the lines of upland, of forest tops and of distant hills, all conspire to confuse the judgment, so that it is quite common for a brook to appear to the eye to run up hill, even when it has a quick current. A few trials with a spirit-level will cure any man of his conceit on this subject. And so it is as to the regular inclination of the bottom of drains. It is desirable not only to have an inclination all the way, but a regular inclination, as nearly as possible, especially if the descent be small. Workmen are very apt to work at a uniform depth from the surface, and so give the bottom of the drain the same variations as the surface line; and thus at one point there may be a fall of one inch in a rod; at another, twice that fall; and at another, a dead level, or even a hollow. On our own farm, we have found, in twelve rods, a variation of a foot in the bottom line of a drain opened by skillful workmen on a nearly level field, where they had no water to guide them, and where they had supposed their fall was regular throughout.