Excerpts: A few years ago almost every farm neighborhood had one or two immigrants who had learned ditching "in the old country." Seemingly without effort they cut uniform slices of soil with the customary long, narrow-bladed tiling spades, and with the regularity of clockwork laid the excavated material in rows on the ditch banks. Experienced ditchers, however, are fast becoming rare, and the shortage in most sections of even unskilled labor has put a serious check on trenching by hand. The lack of experienced men willing to do drainage excavation has resulted in the development of tile-trenching machines operated by steam or gasoline engines for digging the trench to the required depth at one passage. Trenching machines of this type are expensive and represent an investment in equipment larger than the individual farmer usually can afford to make when the amount of work that he will have for the machine is considered. The most economical method of doing this is for a number of farmers to unite and purchase the machine jointly. This can be done with the cooperation of the local farm bureau or county agent, or independently.