I enjoyed very much your article on field tile in the August 2015 issue of Farm Collector. The most common tile that I recall in southern New Jersey was “horseshoe” tile. It was placed open-side down on a board at the bottom of the ditch. I am told that the early tile was called “shin tile” because it was formed on a man’s shin. At the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture (now closed) on the Rutgers University campus in North Brunswick, N.J., there was a curved shin tile, formed on the shin of a man who was bowlegged.
Thanks for the article.
Coles Roberts, Curator of Collections,
New Jersey Museum of Agriculture, Medford, NJ
