TILE DRAINAGE
W.I. Chamberlain

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CAUFOBWA
DAVIS

TV\iE

v

(P^^aw^MW^ ' Wy>P^-

By W. I. Chamberlain, A. M., LL. D.

ly Scci • lie Ohio State Board of Agriculture, and late Presi-

dent of the Iowa State Agricultural College. At present
Associate Editor of the Ohio Farmer.

BTT -A.. I. K>OOT.

1392.

Price 35 Cts.; By Mail 40 Cts.

TILE DRAINAGE,

-OH-

WHY, WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW TO
DRAIN LAND WITH TILES.

A PRACTICAL BOOK FOR PRACTICAL
FARMERS.

By W. I. CHAMBERLAIN, A. M., LL. D.,

Formerly Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, and late
President of the Iowa Slate Agricultural College.

'Tiles are political economists. They are so many young" Americans,
announcing* a belief era and a day of fat tiling's."

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

A. I. ROOT, Medina, O.
1891.

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS

CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY.

The Scope of the Book.

This little book on tile drainage is to join the ranks of lit-
tle books, or practical science-) -rimers, on agricultural sub-
jects, written by such men as Prof. A. J. Cook, A. I. Root,
and T. B. Terry, and published by A. I. Root. It will feel
honored to appear in such company, and will try very hard
to be worthy of it.

Please remember that the book is on tile drainage It does
not try nor wish to cover all drainage ; much less all related
subjects. There are several good reasons for this. One is,
that the size of the book is fixed by the publisher, and he
wishes it to be actually a u primer,' both in its size and in
the clearness and conciseness of its instruction. Another
reason is, that drainage is a progressive science and art.
Much has been learned in the past hundred years. The old-
er, larger books on drainage contain vast amounts of matter
that is as useless now as an eighteenth-century chemistry or
a last year's almanac. It is a mercy that the readers of this
little book need not plod through it. Tile drainage has su-
perseded all other kinds of underdrainage, as, for example,
that with poles, rails, slabs, brush, cobble stones, or with the
mole-plow. It is immensely better than any of these ; more
durable, more efficient, and really cheaper in the long run.
It is really cheaper, too, than open ditching, except for very
large receiving ditches, such, for example, as long, large
township or county ditches, to convey the surplus water of
hundreds or even thousands of acres of pretty level land,
owned by many farmers, in separate farms.

4 TILE DRAINAGE.

Another reason why this little book does not contain all
knowledge on this and related topics is the fact that' its au-
thor does not possess all knowledge! What 'he does not
know is omitted. It would make quite a book— indeed,
quite a library.

There are other reasons why he confines this book closely
to tile drainage, and even to the best and most recent knowl-
edge and practice on that subject ; but these will suffice.
Motley, in " The Dutch Republic,'1 says that, when the hat-
ed Duke of Alva entered a certain city of the Netherlands,
no military salute was fired, as would have been proper ;
but, instead, a deputation from the city fathers appeared be-
fore him saying they had come to give thirty-nine good and
sufficient reasons for the failure. 'First, they had no can-
non; second, they had no powder; third— but the duke
waived the recital of the other thirty-seven reasons.

Tile drainage, and that, too, with round tiles (round inside
and round or octagonal outside), is now admitted by all who
are well informed on the subject to be the best and really
the cheapest sort of drainage for soils that need artificial
drainage. Tiles can be made from the local soil and subsoil
at or near all localities that need tile drainage. Properly
made, burned, and laid, there is no reason why the tiles and
the drains should not last for centuries, while all other kinds
of underdrains soon rot, choke, are spoiled by land or water
vermin, or for other cause become practically useless. To
dwell on any of these kinds of drains, explaining their con-
struction, would be like describing to an inquiring road-
traveler the angles, landmarks, and windings of the wrong
road.

This little book, therefore, will not go into curious '" ancient
history1' on the subject, but from first to last will try to give
just so much of present, well-established facts, reasons, and
methods, as shall enable the wide-awake, thinking, studying
farmer to understand the underlying principles and the best
present methods, and enable him to put them into practice.

TILE DRAINAGE. 5

It may not be out of place for me to say that I have been
a practical student of drainage for fully forty years, having
dug and laid for my father my first cobble-stone drain forty
years ago this spring, and having laid more or less tile drains
nearly every year for the past 26 years. With my own hand,
on my own farm, I have laid nearly fifteen miles of tiles,
giving thorough drainage to nearly 65 acres; .that is, with
main drains wherever they were needed, and with laterals
chiefly two rods apart; but on l.s acres, three rods apart;
also that I have done this work while in debt, in order to get
out of debt, with necessarily strict economy, and with real
pecuniary advantage. I am not, therefore, likely to advise
extravagant or unwise expense. I have also carefully ex-
amined the drainage systems of many of the best farms in
the land, including those of John Johnst »n, the pioneer in
tiling in America ; that of his son-in-law, Robt, J. Swan,
both of Geneva, N. Y. ; T. B. Terry, of Ohio ; Sisson Bros ,
of Illinois ; the Agricultural College farms of Iowa and
Michigan, and had charge of the thorough drainage of the
new State Fair-grounds, Columbus, O., 90 acres. This little
book is not, therefore, a compilation of matter drawn from
other books or cyclopaedias, but, it is hoped, a clear, concise,
and systematic statement of important facts tand principles
drawn chiefly from its writer's own actual experience or ver-
ified knowledge. It is conscientiously written by a practical
farmer for practical farmers who really heed to u tile-out"
certain portions of their farms, and to do it at the lowest
cost consistent with accuracy and thoroughness. It is writ-
ten with the strong hope that it may show more clearly why
we tile at all, where it will pay, and when and how it may be
done most economically and best ; also in the hope that it may
remove some of the needless difficulties and mysteries
thrown around the subject by experts and engineers in order,
it would seem (alas that it need be said !) "to bring grist to
their own mills/'

And yet, as will be seen further on, the writer advises the

6 TILE DRAINAGE.

employment of a civil engineer to establish grades and lev-
els in all complicated cases; also always, if possible, the
employment of a real, practical expert at digging, grading,
and laying tiles, at least for a few days at the first, until the
farmer shall himself learn from him just how to handle the
various necessary tools, establish the grade, cut the true
groove for the tiles, and lay and cover them properly. That
is how I learned.

For quite a number of years I have written considerably
upon the subject of tile drainage for various leading agri-
cultural weeklies, chiefly 7 Vie Country Gentleman, The Ohio
Farmer, The Rural New-Yorker, and the National Stockman
and Farmer. In this little work I shall not consciously bor-
row, even from my own articles there, except in the way of
occasional direct quotations wilh due credit. Those articles
were on particular parts of the subject, and often in answer
to specific questions from readers. This primer tries to be a
brief but complete and systematic discussion of the entire
subject; and it tries to present the underlying scientific
principles involvedvso clearly that its readers not only may
but must understand them.

A single caution : It will be necessary, often, to use the
two similar words tiling (tile-draining) and tilling (cultivat-
ing). When the writer uses the first he begs that neither
printer nor reader will substitute the other for it, or vice
versa. It kills the meaning every time. Also the two words
undrained and underd.raincd look alike, but mean the exact
opposite of each other. Do not confound them.

TILE DRAINAGE. 7

CHAPTER II.

Why do we Tile-drain Land? The Theory.

We drain land to remove surplus moisture, and to fit it for
tillage and rotation of crops and possible horticulture. If
there is no surplus moisture because the land is already
underdrained by nature, as in the case of sandy loams with
porous subsoil, then it does not need tile drainage. A letter
lately received says: " I don't understand. Does all land
need tile drainage V " This is no worse than Horace Gree-
ley, who evidently believed that u the pen is mightier than
the"— plow or spade, and hence farmed and drained chiefly
and with best financial results with the former implement !
He used to say, in substance, that " whatever land it will
pay to till, it will also pay to tile." By no means. You
might as well insist on picking off stones where there are
none, or grubbing out stumps on prairie land that never saw
a tree, as upon removing surplus water down through the
soil by tile drains from land where nature has already re-
moved it down through the soil without tile drains. Indeed,
Nature was so liberal with us in the creation of our great
national domain that probably present prices of land in Ohio
will not justify the thorough drainage (•*'. e., with full system
of laterals) of more than a quarter of the farms in Ohio, un-
less it be for purposes of market-gardening or specially high
farming ; but a very large portion of the Western Reserve
needs it through depressions, "swales," "draws," or
" sloughs." It is the surplus water that needs to be removed
promptly, and it should be removed down through the soil, and
not along its surface. Each of these points should be clearly
understood; and so we will at once consider each separately.

First, then, it is the surplus water that needs to be re-
moved to give best results in tillage, crop growth, and rota-
tion. What is surplus water? It is the water of heavy rains

TILE DRAINAGE.

or snows that soak the soil into mud, filling all its pores full,
and standing stagnant on or in the soil. In spring and sum-
mer it stands in depressions until it evaporates. In fall and
winter it stands and freezes and thaws. In either case it
injures or perhaps ruins the crops. Thousands of acres of
wheat in Ohio and other States during the past wet winter
(1890-91) have been killed thus by too much cold water ; and
the epitaph might be, " Died of wet feet.7' " Seeing is be-
lieving," and I have seen it from car-windows for hundreds
of miles, the dry knolls and slopes having good wheat ; the
wet depressions or flat surfaces having little or none. Nor
does water have to stand upon the surface to kill or greatly

ODE F

FIG. 2

-Capillary attraction in small tubes. The smaller the tube
the higher the water rises in it.

Fig. 2.— Capillary attraction between divergent surfaces— of glass for
example— opened like the cover of a book.

damage the crops. If it stands stagnant in the soil, saturat-
ing it, that is, soaking all the pores completely full, it does
almost equal damage ; for the roots of our agricultural
plants need air as well as moisture, and must have it. If
long deprived of it they dwindle or even die. The moisture

TILE DBAINAGE. 9

that they need is held UP in the soil by what is called u capil-
lary attraction." Capillary attraction is the force of adhesion
betwe3n liquids and solids which makes water rise in small
or "hairlike" tubes; for "capillary1' comes from a Latin
word which means hairlike. If several small glass tubes,
open at both top and bottom, and of different sizes (diame-
ters), have their lower ends standing in a dish of water, then
the water will rise in them above the surface of the water in
which they stand ; and the smaller the tubes are, the higher
the water will rise in them. Fig. 1 illustrates this. Let the
line AB represent the surface of the water, and 0, D, E, and
F, represent small glass tubes. The water will rise in them
to different heights, proportioned inversely to the diameters,
as shown in the figures. The same thing may be shown be-
tween plane surfaces close together. Set two panes of glass
into a pan of water vertically, with two vertical edges joined
and their sides diverging like a thin book set on end and
opened just a little. The water will rise between them and
be highest close to where the edges meet, as shown in Fig. 2.

The point is, that water rises in small tubes or between
close surfaces, and remains above the level of its source. The
tubes need not be round or smooth or straight. They need
not be tubes at all, but simply small connected open spaces
between some sort of material surfaces. For example, the
wick of a lamp is a small bundle of crooked capillary spaces
or pores, and the wick lifts the oil in the lamp to the top of
the wick. The flame does not "draw" it. It simply con-
sumes it as the capillary attraction lifts it. A fine sponge,
with its lower end in water, lifts the water all through its
own pores. You pour water into the "saucer" of your
flower-pot, and capillary attraction lifts the water (entering
at the hole in the pot) all through its soil. In the same way
the water in the soil of a field is drawn to or near the sur-
face to supply vegetation in a dry time. It cnmes from the
water stored deeper down in a wet time.

But the soil, like a sponge, has some spaces or pores too

10 TILE DKAIKAGE.

large for capillary attraction to hold the water in them up to
or near the surface. These larger ones are filled with air,
and must be, or plants will die. If you plunge a sponge
wholly into water (submerge it) these proper air-spaces are
filled with water; and if a tenacious clayey soil is not tile-
drained, then in a very wet time it is in effect plunged in
water. Its needed air-spaces are filled with water. Plant-
roots can get no air until the surplus water is removed. A
soil full of water is as unfit for work as a man full of some-
thing stronger. A simple experiment proves this. Plant
peas or corn in a tight pot or pail, and keep the soil just cov-
ered with water. The peas or corn will not grow.

"Capillary water" and ''hydrostatic water." It will be
convenient to use both of these terms frequently in this
book, in a technical sense. Let us therefore agree what that
technical sense shall be. Capillary water, as this little book
will use the term, is the water which is brought from below
in the soil and subsoil, up to or near the surface, by capillar-
ity or capillary attraction ; as when a tile-drained or natural-
ly drained soil is moist near to the surface long after rain.
This is the proper condition for plant-growth.

Hydrostatic water is that which fills the large pores of a
sponge, for example, when it is submerged in water, and the
large pores in any soil just after sudden drenching rain, or
of an undrained clayey soil, sometimes for days or weeks
after heavy rains. Capillary water is a blessing and even a
necessity in agriculture. Hydrostatic water, or the water
of complete saturation, is a great damage if continued many
hours, and a fatal thing to crops if continued many days.
It is the purpose and the actual result of tile drainage to
remove the hydrostatic water, the damage, and leave the
capillary water, the blessing. In untiled clayey soils the
hydrostatic water sometimes stands up or nearly up to the
surface of the ground for several days after the rain ceases.
When every u cradle-hole," or surface depression, even on
rolling or sloping land, stands full of water, you may know

TILE DKAINAGE. 11

that the hydrostatic water is at or near the surface all
through the soil. When water oozes frc m the ground, as on
slopes, you may know that gravity (hydrostatic pressure) is
forcing it out here from a higher level.

In a dry time the hydrostatic water sinks several inches or
even feet below the surface in land not tiled or drained by
nature. This is because the capillaries have previously
carried it to the surface, and the hot dry atmosphere has
evaporated and absorbed it, as will be seen presently. You
can find just how near to the surface the hydrostatic water
stands at any time, simply by digging a hole in the ground.
The hole will soon fill up to the top level of complete satura-
tion ; i.e., of hydrostatic water in the ground. In a wet
time this hole may be a mere post-hole, and may stand full
to the very surface. In a very dry time the "hole" will
need to be a deep well, perhaps. But the surface-water in
each will show the top level of the hydrostatic water that is
within reach of hydrostatic pressure ; for hydrostatic press-
ure and capillarity are constantly opposing forces. One
pushes the water down ; the other lifts it up. One is simply
the force of gravity acting on the water. The other is a
kind of adhesive attraction between the water and the
sides of the pores in the soil. Where these pores are very
large, as in gravel or coarse sand, there gravity acts nearly
unobstructed, and hence rapidly and over long distances ;
and so the sand or gravel " veins " or seams in clay subsoils
are the " water-bearing strata ?? for wells and springs, and
bring water into them rapidly, and often from long distances.
If a tight tube or curb is inserted in the well or spring, the
water will quickly rise to the level of its source, even if that
is many rods away, and the filtration in such coarse sand is
imperfect. In a hamlet in Switzerland, all who drank from
a certain spring had typhoid fever. It was traced to the ex-
cretions of a typhoid patient, which were thrown out witli
slops upon the ground, over half a mile distant, and over
quite a hill. Proof positive was given by pouring a large

12

TILE DEAINAGE.

quantity of salt brine upon the spot where the excretions had
been thrown. The water in the spring soon became percepti-
bly salt in taste. Fig. 3 illustrates this.

Fig. 3.— Imperfect filtration by coarse sand and gravel as water-bear-
ing strata. The spring that furnished water to the hamlet was at B;
the typhoid-soil pollution at A, about half a mile distant. Results as
given in the text.

In this way gravel veins in clayey subsoils and artesian
wells are explained. The " head " of water is higher, and at
a distance, and is connected with the place where the arte-
sian well is dug, by a deep coarse sand or gravel stratum.
Fig. 4 illustrates this.

A

Fig. 4.— Artesian well. A to D is a coarse gravel and sand stratum
between nearly impervious strata of clay. Artesian well B D, drilled
and tubed down to D. If it is tubed up to C, and the stratum A D is
saturated clear up to A, then the hydrostatic pressure will force the
water in the tube up to a level at C. If tubed only to the surface at B
it will make a flowing, or artesian well,

TILE DKAINAGE. 13

But where the pores in the soil and subsoil are very small,
with few of the larger spaces, the hydrostatic pressure is
nearly overcome by capillarity, and hence is very slow in its
action. This is the case in compact and tenacious clayey
soils, especially when not tiled. The water from heavy rains
and snows is a long time in soaking into and through the
ground, almost making impossible the profitable tillage and
growing of root crops and cereals ; for, first, the soil can not
be tilled early enough in spring nor soon enough after each
rain for good results ; and, second, the top level of complete
saturation (hydrostatic water) is so near the surface of the
ground that the plants get little depth of root. On damp
clays, maple and apple tree roots run almost or quite on
the surface, not for lack of plant food, but from too much
water. " Drowned out," we say correctly.

Second. The first point just made, is, that surplus mois-
ture must be removed. The second, now to be considered, is,
that it must, to secure real success, be removed down through
the soil and not off along its surface. This is just what un-
derdrainage does for clayey soils and subsoils; and so the
full discussion of this point will pretty nearly cover the
theory and state the facts of tile drainage ; that is, will an-
swer the question that stands at the head of this chapter ;
viz., u Why do we tile-drain land ? "

The point we wish to make is, that the surplus water
should be removed down through the soil, as by tile drainage,
and not off along its surface, as where there is no underdrain-
age natural or artificial. The following are a few of the
reasons :

First, because it makes all tillage and harvesting opera-
tions easier and more rapid, physically and mechanically.
Surface drainage is better than none ; but it greatly inter-
feres with all farming operations. If the surface drains are
natural, that is, simply made by water action, they will usu-
ally be crooked brooks or gulleys, cutting up the field into
awkward shapes for cultivation , as in Fig. 5. This repre-

14

TILE DBAINAGE.

sents a ten-acre field of rolling land, which is cut by crooked
gulleys or swales into four irregular patches, A, B, C, D,
each bounded by the " ragged edge " of a crooked swale, and
each requiring nearly as many rounds or turnings with plow,
harrow, mower, or twine-binder, as the whole field would
take if handled as one unobstructed plat. The sides along
the swales, or dry brooks, are wet, crooked, and non-tillable;
the angles are far sharper than four right angles of the field,
far more vexatious to the farmer, and much more likely, as
Dr. Holmes puts it, " to stir up the monosyllables of his un-
sanctified vocabulary ! "

8

D

Fig. 5.— Ten-acre field with crooked " swales," or dry brooks, interfer-
ing with tillage. For explanation, see text.

Now, if nothing more is done than to cut straight, open
ditches, as indicated by the dotted lines, and if only the
holes and hollows of the winding brooks are filled and grad-
ed (see Fig. 5), even this improves matteis considerably.
But if Ule mains are laid where the dotted lines run, and
such laterals are put in as the nature of the land requires,

TILE DRAINAGE. 15

then these depressions thus tiled become dry, and tit for
tillage in spring time earliest of any part of the field, and
soonest after heavy rains, and the whole rectangular field
becomes one which it is a delight, and not, as formerly, a
weariness and irritation, to farm. I speak from actual ex-
perience here as elsewhere.

Second. Removing the surplus water down through the soil
by means of tile drainage is better than removing it over the
top by surface drainage, because the former removes all the
surplus, not only that on the surface, but that in the soil
and subsoil. Even if the surplus is removed from the sur-
face, as it is naturally from rolling clayey lands, while the
soil and subsoil are still soaked full, tillage is delayed, and
plant-growth is practically suspended, and sometimes the
plants actually die. As before remarked, thousands of
acres of wheat in Ohio were thus killed during the past win-
ter of 1890.

Third. Removing the surplus down through the soil by tile
drainage is best because it prevents loss of fertility by surface
wash. That loss from clayey lands not tiled is sometimes
immense. For example, the report of the Ohio Meteorolog-
ical Bureau shows that nearly ten inches of rain and melted
snow fell in Hudson during February and March, 1891. But
nearly all that amount was surplus water, to be removed by
some sort of drainage ; for the ground was already saturat-
ed, too wet, at the beginning of February, and there was
very little sunshine or wind to evaporate it, and little
growth, even of the wheat, to use the moisture. Indeed,
the wheat would have been better without a quarter as much
rain. Now, I have noticed the facts on my own wheat, a
little over 20 acres. Most of it was top-dressed with about
12 loads per acre, applied on a part of it with the wheat last
fall, and on another part plowed under for the preceding
crop, and brought to the surface when the land was plowed
for wheat. Nearly all the land 'is thoroughly tiled, with lat-
erals, most of them two and the rest three rods apart. The

16 TILE DRAINAGE.

tiles handled practically all that water down through the soil,
and left the ground not at nil qn1lied by surface wash, and
without material loss of fertility from manure or soil. But
how fearful would have been the loss and damage except for
the tile drains! Think of the immense amount of water
that fell on the 20 acres in those 5y days ! Almost exactly 50
Ibs. on each square foot, or 21,780 tons on the 20 acres-
enough to take a man and team 3£ years to cart away, draw-
ing 21 tons say half a mile each working day ! Without the
tile drains, ali this water must have run off from or remain-
ed stagnant on the surface of an already over-saturated soil.
If much of it had remained on it, as in case of level land
with depressions, it would have wholly ruined the wheat,
and terribly "puddled" the soil and damaged its texture.
Or if it had run off rapidly, as from quite rolling clayey soil
not tiled, it would have gullied the land badly, and caused
immense loss of fertility by washing away the soluble ele-
ments of plant food and even much of the soil itself. But
with the soil thoroughly tiled it did not gully or wash ; and
the water, filtering down through the soil to reach the
drains, nearly three feet deep, left these soluble elements in
the soil as food for the wheat and future crops. The wheat
" survived the flood" in fine condition. The drainage was
the Noah's ark that saved b >th the wheat and the fertility.

Fourth. Removing the surplus water down through the toil
by tile drainage is best because it adds fertility to the soil
with each rainfall. That is, it not only prevents loss from
surface wash, but it actually secures gain from the rain.
Falling rain water, especially during thunder-storms, con-
tains some available nitrogen, small in amount, but valua-
ble. If the land is tiled, the soil acts as a filter, and arrests
this fertilizing matter and holds it just where plant-roots
can get it.

Fifth. Removing the surplus water down through the soil
by means of tile drainage helps to warm the soil as well as
dry it, giving best condition for plant-growth. It warms it

TILE DBAIHAGE. 17

in three ways : It removes the surplus water which other-
wise, frozen in winter, must both thaw and evaporate in
spring, both of which are chilling processes ; second, it keeps
the air-spaces open, and warm air ascends in winter from
the subsoil, always warmer in winter than the soil. Third,
through these open air-spaces warm showers soak down in
spring and warm the soil.

As to the fiist point, thawing and evaporation both keep
the soil and the adjacent atmosphere colder. Thawing ice,
especially by heat from above, is a slow process. Let the
water freeze solid in a wooden pump, and try to thaw it
with hot water from above, and you will be convinced. In
spring the ice on and in an undrained soil must be thawed at
an immense waste of sun-heat which would, if the land were
drained, be used in warming and drying the soil, and in
germinating seeds, in that case already sown. This thawing
in spring takes the warmth out of the air just as the ice in
an ice-cream freezer, melting by the chemical action of the
salt, requires warmth and takes it from the cream, freezing
the latter. We all know, too. how chilly the air is when
snow and ice are thawing in the fields in spring time. Thus
the mere thawing of the ice on and in a saturated clayey soil
may delay the starting and growth of crops a full week or
more in spring time. But, now, suppose it all to be melted
at last. It must still be evaporated from above (nearly all of
it in a tenacious undrained clay soil) by the sun's heat
before plowing, planting, growth, and tillage can begin ;
and evaporation is not only a very slow process, but a very
cooling one. Wash your hands, even in warm water, out-
doors in a brisk wind (where evaporation is rapid), and hold
them up in the wind and you will see how quickly they
are chilled. We sprinkle pavements and porch floors in
summer, and evaporation cools the air. Increased evap-
oration cools the air after a summer shower. Boys coming
out from swimming into a brisk wind are chilled by the
evaporation from their wet bodies.

18 TILE DBAINAGE.

Many other illustrations might be given of the fact that
both thawing and evaporation are very cooling processes.
Undrained clay soils are called ktcold soils," and sandy
loams are called u warm soils," partly on account of this
thawing and this drying by evaporation, that must take
place on the former. But tile-draining a clayey soil saves
these two wastes of heat, and makes it warm earlier in
spring and warmer by several degrees than the vmdrained
adjacent soil all summer, as has been shown by careful tests
with thermometers placed in both soils.

The second way in which underclrainage, natural or arti-
ficial, warms the soil is by keeping the proper air-spaces (the
larger pores) open in the soil, and not full of hydrostatic
water, or ice in winter. When thus open, the warmth from
the warmer subsoil ascends through them and helps to warm
the soil. Suppose the soil is frozen But the subsoil five
feet deep will be about 50° warm, and will help thaw the
frozen soil, which is about 20° cooler. If the air-spaces are
open this warmth readily ascends.

The third point under this fifth general head was, that
tile drainage keeps the pores, or air-spaces, open for the de-
scent of the warm rains of spring and summer, and these
carry down their warmth into soil and subsoil, liain can
not descend through the small capillary spaces. They are
full of moisture held up to or near the surface by capillary
attraction. But in the larger, proper air-spaces, capillarity
does not oppose gravitation, and the warm rain sinks rapid-
ly and warms the soil.

As to frost action, it is a curious and seemingly paradox-
ical fact that porous soils freeze deeper in winter, though
they thaw earlier in spring. Frost goes down faster when
the air-spaces are open, just as warmth goes both down and
up more readily, as has been seen. If you are skeptical on
this point, examine the two kinds of soil described, or try
the following simple experiment in winter time. Take two
large sponges, as nearly alike as may be. Wet one till its

TILE DRAINAGE. 19

capillaries are full (and its proper air-spaces empty), by sim-
ply dipping its lower part in water. Saturate the other by
submerging it in a small tin pail of water as nearly the size
of the sponge as may be. Put the other sponge in the same
sort of tin pail, only perforated like a colander. Hang the
two pails (containing the sponges) out in the freezing air.
You will find the sponge in the colander pail frozen far soon-
er than the other. It would freeze deeper if long and sunk
into the ground. Now set both pails on a gridiron or wire
support over a stove where the temperature is not over 60
or 70°, like the spring atmosphere. The aerated sponge in
the perforated pail will be thawed long before the other.
Air and warmth can circulate through it. It is honey-comb-
ed. But warmth gets access to the other sponge only at the
bottom, and air only at the top. The ice in an ice-house
keeps well if the air is kept out. It melts fast if air gets in
and honey-combs it.

Partly as inferences from or corollaries of the proofs given
in our fifth proposition above, follow both our sixth and
seventh.

Sixth. — Removing surplus moisture down through the soil
by tile drainage lengthens the season of tillage, crop growth,
and harvest. It increases it in spring, as already seen, by
saving the time and sunheat otherwise simply wasted in
thawing and drying a soaked or flooded soil. It increases it
after each soaking rain of the crop season by carrying the
surplus water quickly downward (with its warmth) through
the open air-spaces, leaving the soil ready for plant-growth,
and dry enough for tillage far sooner after each shower. It
increases the time of growth and harvest, especially of late
varieties of potatoes, by keeping the soil dry enough for
growth and digging, even after the heavy rains of autumn
begin to come.

Seven th.— Tile drainage increases the extent of root pasturage.
Roots of most trees (except water-elms, willows, soft maples,
and other swamp and lowland trees) and of most agricultu-

20

TILE DBAINAGE.

ral and horticultural crops will not feed below the top level
of frequent saturation. Fart of my apple orchard is tiled,
part not. On the untiled part the roots run close to the sur-
face, get less nourishment, are more disturbed by tillage
operations, and over four times as many have died out or
been killed by tillage as in the tiled part immediately adja-

Fig. 6.— Corn roots, sh allow on Fig. 7. Corn roots running- deep
clayey soil not tiled, in a wet in a tile-drained soil, he the sea-
season, son wet or dry.

TILE DRAINAGE. 21

cent, while the whole appearance is less thrifty. Two photo-
engravings and a diagram in the next chapter illustrate this.

Figures 6 and 7 are fair illustrations of corn growth on
tiled and on untiled land. In 6 the line A B is the top level
of hydrostatic water— frequent saturation ; arid in Fig. 7,
C D is the line. Now, as the available plant-food of the
soil is diffused all through the pores of the soil, and can be
taken by the roots only by actual contact, it is plain that an
increased depth of root-growth means an increased supply
of food for the plant, and the corn shows the results about
as shown in Figs. 6 and 7. Tile drainage doubles the depth
of the farm ; or^ as Ralph Waldo Emerson (quoted by
French) aptly puts it in an address at Concord, Mass., " This
year a very large quantity of land has been discovered and
added to the agricultural land, and without a murmur of
complaint from any neighbor. By drainage we have gone
to the subsoil, and we have a Concord under Concord, a
Middlesex under Middlesex, and a basement story of Massa-
chusetts more valuable than all the superstructure. Tiles
are political economists. They are so many young Ameri-
cans, announcing a better era and a day of fat things."

My friend Mr. T. B. Terry and I are both fond of quoting,
concerning farming, Daniel Webster's remark about real
talent in law practice ; to wit, that " there is always room
in the upper story." But tile drainage, according to Emer-
son's apt metaphor, shows to every owner of a clayey farm
large areas of valuable unused land ; " room in the lower
story;" nay, in the very basement!

Eighth.— Removing the surplus water down through the
soil by means of tile drainage helps to disintegrate the soil and
make pulverization possible. I have already spoken of the
increased disintegration through deeper frost action ; but
during the crop season the surplus moisture must be re-
moved before we can " pulverize " with tillage imple-
ments. The exact meaning of " pulverize," as its Latin
derivation shows, is to reduce to "dust" or fine soft pow-

22 TILE DRAINAGE.

der. But surplus water in the soil makes mud, the opposite
and enemy of dust. Further, a clayey soil long kept too
wet gets "puddled," especially if tramped by live stock or
worked with implements when too wet. This means the
filling and destruction of the air-spaces, restored only by
freezing in ridges, or by tiling and tillage. A puddled clay
soil dries into a hard, impervious, brick-like mass. Tile
drainage, proper tillage, rotation and care, and keeping live
stock off, will prevent this and make a clayey soil more
nearly like the fertile sandy and gravelly loams, naturally
underdrained and adapted to tillage and rotation of crops.

Ninlh.— This brings us naturally to the next proposition ;
viz., that til$ drainage of soils that need it greatly diminishes
the effect of frost in heaving out wheat, clover, etc , in winter
and spring. The action of frost in heaving out roots and
plants is powerful and very peculiar, and closely connected
with capillary caction. How is " hoar-frost " or " stool-ice "
formed V Capillary action brings moisture to the surface of
the ground, but can take it no further, for that is the top of
the capillary tubes or pores. It will not run off from the
surface, for capillarity is the adhesive attraction between
the water and the solid matter (earth) that forms- the sides of
the capillary pores or spaces, and hence the water can not
rise by this force higher than the top of the capillaries that
exert the force ; that is, it can not rise above the surface of
the ground. Further, the same force that lifts it to the sur-
face holds it there unless some other force takes it away.
Two other forces can remove it— frost and warm air ; and
the capillaries will, so to speak, pump it to the surface as
fast as either of these can take it. Frost takes it up as fol-
lows : It first freezes a thin layer of this capillary water at
the surface of the ground, and keeps on freezing thin layers,
each under the bottom of the preceding, each lifting up all
previous ones by its own thickness ; and so, by morning of a
clear cold night, the surface of a damp field will be honey-
combed an inch or two deep with this stool-ice or hoar frost.

TILE DEAINAGE. 29

It is a continuous process or growth from the bottom all
night long of loose porous ice. Incidentally it is well to say
that, as this hoar-frost lifts with it considerable amounts of
surface earth, therefore if clover seed be sown before it is
formed, then, when the frost thaws, the seed will usually be
nicely covered.

The power of this stool-ice or hoar-frost is very great. If
it freezes around and partly under clover and wheat plants*
and roots, it will lift them perhaps half an inch each clear
frosty night. The sunshine of the next day thaws the frost
and leaves the roots lifted just so much ; and the next frost
will lift them more, and so on until they are out of ground,
or so nearly so as to have little vitality for growth. I have
seen many fields of wheat on damp undrained soil ruined in
this way ; and many fields of clover, with the great tap roots
sticking up into the air five or six inches all over the fields
in spring, like long numb fingers lifted toward heaven, and
crying for tile drainage ! for tile drainage almost wholly pre-
vents this by lowering the level of saturation, or hydrostatic
water, so much that only the smallest capillaries can pump
it to the surface. Or, aided by the warmth of the sun and
the action of the wind, it may even dry out a layer of earth
at the surface of the ground, so that this may act as a dry
mulch, or blanket, a non-conductor or poor conductor of
heat and cold between, the frost and the top ends of even the
smallest capillary pores, and thus nearly or quite thwart the
power of the cold atmosphere to form this stool-ice.

These principles and facts throw light upon a curious and
hotly contested question in tillage ; viz., Shall we retain
moisture by cultivating the surface among "hoed crops"
immediately after showers in summer? " Yes," say the
careful, practical observers, "we know by frequent trials
that this really does help to retain moisture in the soil."

" No," say those who have a mere smattering of science ;
" we stir hay with a tedder to make it dry faster ; and if we
stir the soil with a cultivator it will just make it dry faster."

24 TILE DRAINAGE.

So it will for a time and at the top, until it dries the top half
an Inch or so and makes it a dry mulch between the hot air
and wind and the top ends of the capillaries. For heat and
wind, as we have already seen are the other agents besides
f lost that can take the moisture as fast as the capillary pores
can lift it to the surface. But the heat and wind must be
able to come in contact with the upper ends of the capillaries
in order to take their moisture ; and this the dry-earth
mulch almost wholly prevents ; for dry earth is a very poor
conductor, both of warmth and air and of capillary water.
The fine tillage of the surface destroys the fine small capilla
ry pores at their top ends, and substitutes coai ser but still
very small air spaces in the drying earth, which will not
readily conduct the water from the capillaries to the top of
the ground, nor admit currents of warm air to reach the top
ends of the capillaries. For, to be more exact, it is not the
heat or the wind that takes up the moisture pumped to the
surface by the capillaries, but the air (or atmosphere) itself.
This has the physical property or power of absorbing and
holding water in large quantities in the form of vapor ; and
the warmer the air is, the more wrater (vapor) it will hold.
Heat turns the water into vapor, and increases the power of
the air to absorb it. Wind aids in absorbing the vapor from
the ground, for wind is simply moving air ; and when the
wind blows, new portions of air pass along and come in con-
tact with the damp surface of the ground and take up or
absorb what vapor they can hold ; and then they move along
and give other drier portions a chance to load up with water
—like the line of empty buckets at a fire, filling up at the
well or tank or hydrant, and passing on to give place to
other empty ones. That is the reason why a windy day is
usually a drying one. And so while deep coarse tillage helps
to dry out the soil, fine surface tillage after showers does
really help retain moisture. The capillaries cease to pump
it up, because the wind and heat are Ifcept by this mulch
from drinking it up ; just as the capillaries of a lamp- wick

TILE DRAINAGE. 25

cease to pump when the flame goes out and ceases to take
and use what they pump. Observation attests the fact that
fine surface-tillage after showers helps to retain moisture,
and a full knowledge of the physical principles involved ex-
plains the reason. The sciolists, with their smattering of
science, are wrong as usual.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

I have tried to explain this point quite fully, partly on ac-
count of its bearing on the next two propositions.

Tenth.— Tile drainage on clayey soils helps the crops to resist
drouth better. It puts these soils in condition to receive this
surface tillage sooner after showers, for one thing, and hence
to retain moisture better. Again, it permits the crops to be
started earlier and pushed faster, and hence makes them
more likely to be out of the way of the July and August
drouths so common in this latitude. Still further, it puts
the whole soil more fully into that loose and spongy condi-
tion that enables it actually to hold more water and yet not be
too wet. A clayey soil not tile-drained tends constantly to
settle down and become too compact, especially if worked or
tramped when it is too damp ; and it almost always is too
damp in fall, winter, and spring. This reduces the size and
number of its capillaries, and hence they can not hold so
much ; just as a sponge with all its capillaries full loses half
its water if compressed to half its size. And this loose,
spongy, friable condition of the soil, that fits it to hold the
most water in its capillaries, is greatly increased by tile
drainage followed by proper tillage. When a clayey soil, not
tiled, is thoroughly soaked it becomes more or less puddled
and compacted, so that the proper air-spaces become smaller
and act as capillaries. It dries only by evaporation from the
top, as fast as the capillaries bring the moisture up. But
when it finally does get dry it is apt to bake into great dry
clods with little moisture, and little chance for roots to pen-
etrate and permeate it ; arid so a soil that has been ren-

26 TILE DRAINAGE.

dered light, porous, and spongy., by tiling and proper tillage,
really has more water in it all summer that is available for
plant-growth ; that is, more in its proper capillaries to start
with, and with its air-spaces open. It also wastes less of its
moisture by evaporation, for reasons already given, and has
its pores open for the quick reception of any sudden showers,
thus preventing surface loss from the suddenness and rapid-
ity of the rainfall.

Eleventh.— Tile drainage often, though not always, dimin-
ishes the suddenness and violence of floods. On this point I
have carefully watched the behavior of my own tile-drained
land and of adjacent land not drained, and hence have facts
as well as theory to offer. I have often noticed this before,
but more carefully than ever this last winter of 1890-91.
The drained land had its air-spaces open all last winter, and
the ground thawed out almost at the beginning of each
thaw, and especially of each rain. The rain, descending
through these air-spaces, not only thawed the entire ground
sooner than if they had been frozen full of hydrostatic water,
but at once, often within an hour, set all the tile drains at
work. Tne rain as it fell was received into 30 inches deep of
porous, spongy soil, and gradually under hydrostatic pressure
(acting slowly through the pores) was sent into the tiles.
Sometimes the drains would keep right on discharging more
and more slowly for several days, and sometimes clear on
until the next rain, thus emptying the soil of its surplus, and
leaving again this 30 inches of porous soil and subsoil like a
great sponge all over the tiles, ready to absorb each rain and
make its flow into the open streams below far slower, and ex-
tended over a much longer time. But the ground adjacent,
and not tiled, being soaked full and frozen in December and
January, remained frozen full nearly all winter, especially
where bare or nearly so. All its depressions were puddles of
water frozen into solid ice, and the whole surface was thus
without the power of absorbing or filtering scarcely a gallon of
each new rain. Thus the untiled clayey land is like a great

TILE DRAINAGE. 27

flat tin root' from which all the water must run as fast as it
falls. But the tiled land, especially if covered with a mat of
clover or whe-it, is like a flat roof covered with a deep layer
of tine sponge, which will absorb quite a shower before it
will let any run off, and will retain much water, slowly
parting with it for hours after the rain ceases.

In early autumn, however, when all the surface depres-
sions are empty on even untiled clayey land, after a long
dry summer, we can see that the untiled land would store
more water than the tiled before parting with it. But that
is the time when disastrous floods do not occur, at any rate.
Tile drainage, therefore, after the soil is saturated in fall
will, as a rule, diminish the suddenness and violence of
floods below, just in proportion to the area tile-drained.
That is, tile drainage will (and does) furnish a sort of res-
ervoir or storage-layer of porous soil for holding heavy rains
back for a time from the water-courses below, thus extend-
ing the time and therefore diminishing the violence of the
delivery below. Such has been my careful observation of
actual facts on and below my own land, and such seems to
me to be the rational scientific explanation. And yet I
know it is a popular belief that tile drainage increases floods.
Open ditches and the clearing of forests do ; but tile drain-
age, I think, does not as a rule.

Twelfth. — Drainage, both open and with tiles, improves the
health of a mji.on. For best results, large regions must be
drained ; but even on a single farm it diminishes malarial,
diphtheritic, and typhoid tendencies to drain a considerable
area around the house and barns by a thorough system of
tile drainage. The farmer may not be able to control or
greatly influence the general drainage of the township or
county in which he lives ; but he can control that of the
farm on which and the cellar over which he and his family
live. In' the tenacious and almost impervious clayey soils
that are found over so large a portion of Northern Ohio, I
believe the cellar should have a good four-inch tile drain

28 TILE DKAINAGE.

laid a foot deep, just inside the wall all around the cellar,
covered with coarse gravel, and running under the cellar
wall at one corner to a good outlet, and with a good fall.
Then a gravel or cement floor will give a sufficiently dry
cellar. A wet cellar under the living-rooms is a dangerous
thing to health, especially if rubbish or vegetables ever de-
cay there. The cellar should be thus drained first, and then
as much of the adjacent yard, garden, and farm as one's
means will permit. The pay will come in better health and
better crops, and the drainage will in time extend to other
farms and to the township and county if they need drainage.
Drainage, like charity, " begins at home." The streets of a
certain city are said to be marvelously clean because " every
man actually sweeps before his own door."

CHAPTER III.

Why do we Tile-drain Land? The Actual
Facts; Does Drainage Pay?

The preceding chapter has given theory chiefly, supported
by a few facts. According to the theory there given, tile
drainage ought to bring good results and pay its way on soils
that need it, provided the drainage is done economically and
the land is properly managed after tiling. What are the
actual facts V Has it actually paid where it has been tried V
I believe that it has and does, arid will in future. As one
object of this little book, on the part both of its author and
its publisher, is to encourage and promote more successful
farming, and as we believe tile drainage is the very basis of
successful farming on clayey or low, swampy soils, we shall
take considerable pains in this chapter, both by photograph-
ic illustrations and by clear statement of facts, to make it
plain that tile drainage actually does pay, on soils that need it.

TILE DKAINAGE. 29

I might give facts from many farms in many States — facts
of my own observation, and figures given me by the owners.
13ut it may be better to confine myself to my own farm and
my own experience, and give that the more fully, both in
word and picture.

MY FIRST EXPERIMENT IN THOROUGH TILING.

My first cobble stone drain I laid for my father about 40
years ago, first in our farm-garden, and afterward in our
large garden in Hudson village, where we lived a few years,
in order that "we boys" might go through college. Even
those single cobble drains through our gardens, with a good
slope, showed such excellent results in mellowing and dry-
ing the soil in early spring, and making tillage easier and
crops better, that it predisposed me toward underdrainage.

Soon after I bought my father's farm, now nearly 27 years
ago, I collected cobble stones for an underdrain through a
wet swale or depression in one corner of what is now my
orchard. I hired an expert English ditcher, Mr John Win-
burn, to help me dig and lay the drain. Said he, " Within
ten years you will tile-drain this whole field, and will need a
four-inch tile-mam right down this valley, and I would lay it
now." I followed his advice. That swale, from being the
wettest, became the driest and most friable part of the field,
soonest fit to plow in spring, mellowest all summer. A
few years after this I lost two crops in succession on that
field from excessive wetness — one of potatoes and one of
Hungarian grass, both nearly total failures. I at once
thoroughly tiled about 13 acres of the 15 (then in orchard)
with laterals 33 feet apart and 30 inches deep, and with other
four-inch mains as needed, in addition to the one laid before.
The next year I harvested 46i bushels of wheat per acre
from 10 acres of that field, where, bear in mind, I had just
had two yeai s of failure. The measurements were certified.
Wheat was $1.00 per bushel. The thorough drainage cost
me $23 per acre. The first crop of wheat ^ therefore, paid

30 TILE DBAINAG&

twice the total cost of drainage, besides the increased growth of
the apple-trees, and a heavy crop of wheat straw, and as
grand a crop of clover and timothy the next year as I ever
saw.

Encouraged by these results, and by others later, I went
on from year to year increasing the area of thoroughly tiled
land, until now I have, as already stated, nearly 65 acres of
my total 115, drained with about 15 miles of laterals and the
necessary mains.

My very able friend, Mr. B. F. Johnson, of Champaign Co.,
Illinois, has had much to say for the past ten years in the
various agricultural papers for which he has written, of the
evil effects of tile drainage in Illinois, especially upon or-
chards, and in increasing the liability to drouth and flood.
On these last points, drouth and flood, I have already spoken
quite fully in the tenth and eleventh numbers of the preced-
ing chapter. As to general crops and orchards, I have trav-
eled, observed, and inquired quite extensively in nearly all
the States of the Union, and have never seen or heard of ill
effects of drainage except from Mr. Johnson, and he never
offered any ocular or other demonstration. It may be and
doubtless is true, as he states, that drouth has increased in
Illinois during the past three or four years, and yet the fact
be due to other causes than tile drainage. Drouth has also
increased during the same period in Central and Western
Iowa, where I lived the past five years nearly ; but it can
not have been caused by tile drainage, for probably not one
per cent of the total area there has been tiled. Then, too; as to
its increasing floods, the Ohio Kiver floods are oftenest quot-
ed. In the first place, the floods have not increased, as the
statistics of 50 years show; and in the second place, not one-
tenth of one per cent of the hilly water-shed that causes floods
in the Ohio River has ever heard of tile drainage. It is simply
the old fault in logic, of assigning wrong causes. The logi-
cians call it the fallacy of "postea, ergo propter," or " after-
ward, therefore because of." It rains after the barometer

TILE DEAIKAGE.

31

falls and the peacock screams ; therefore the barometer and
the peacock caused the rain !

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE UPON ORCHARD AND WHEAT.

These are best shown from a part of this same field of
mine. As already stated, not very long after the orchard
was planted, about 13 acres of the total 15 were thoroughly
tiled and the other two not. Fig. 8, below, is a diagram

PiAGJUM ^ PART »f

EXPLANATIONS: =-=^-== BOUNDARY LINES,

~ MAIM TILE DRAINS;

S/CAMERA . DIRECTION °F EXPOSURE
(•ORIGINAL TREt, 21' '"YKS OLDk o. DEAD T

ORCHARD. r6

LATERAL TILE I

SHOWS DIRECTION »F SLOPE, OR FALL,

, RE-SFT WITHIN 16 YEARS.

showing the exact drainage system of about 6| acres of the
orchard, including the two acres, or a little more, not thor-
oughly tiled. The whole plat includes the lowest and most
rolling or sloping part of the orchard, and the part not tiled is
the most rolling, even of this part, and therefore was left, be-

32 TILE DKAINAGE.

cause I thought it might not need drainage, or at least could
be left until I could learn whether so large an outlay paid on
the rest of the orchard. At the right of Fig. 8, A B C, with
the short spur F B, is the one main drain, and D E is the
only lateral in the part not thoroughly tiled. At the left of
the figure it is seen that about two-thirds of the plat is thor-
oughly tiled, having laterals half way between all rows. The
rows, and hence the laterals, are 33 feet apart. The part
thoroughly tiled is marked " plat 1," and the part only par-
tially tiled is marked " plat 2," and will be so referred to.
The mark + shows an original tree, alive and thrifty. The
mark O shows one dead, and replaced by a new tree. The
photo-engravings, Figs. 9 and 10, show at a glance the re-
sults of drainage upon orchard trees and wheat, and show
it, as I think, in a most striking and conclusive manner.*
Fig. 9 is a photo-engraving of a part of plat 1, and Fig. 10 of a
part of plat 2. The camera stood at S, Fig. 9, and pointed
diagonally to the left for Fig. 9, and to the right for Fig. 10,
as shown by the darts at S, Fig. 8.

THE EFFECTS OF TILING UPON APPLE-TREES.

Compare Figs. 9 and 10. " Seeing is believing," and the cam-
era will not lie. In Fig. 9 the trees are strong and thrifty ;
their branches meet each other ; they shade nearly the whole
of the ground; some of the trunks are over 40 inches in cir-
cumference a foot above the ground ; and the trees are seen,
both from the photograph, Fig. 9, and the diagram, Fig. 8, to
be nearly all of the original planting. But in Fig. 10 the trees
are evidently far smaller ; there is none of the uniformity,
density, and thrift found in Fig. 9 ; and Fig. 8 shows that
more than half of the original trees died; and they have had
to be replaced by smaller trees within about 16 years.

*With the full consent of the publisher, A. I. Root, I g-ave in The
Rural New-Yorker of Aug. 8, 1891, Fig's. 8, 9, and 10 (finely reproduced by
that paper), and the substance of some six or eight pages which follow
here. W. I. C.

TILE DRAINAGE. 38

ARE THE ENGRAVINGS FAIR AND TRUTHFUL V

Yes, wholly so ; or, if any thing, they do not give the facts
strongly enough in favor of drainage ; for, really, the trees
and wheat in Fig. 10 (the same as plat 2 of Fig. 8) have had
the best chance. Naturally the land in Fig. 10 is better than
tint in Fig. 9, both for orchard and wheat, being more roll-
ing ; and, still further, it lies nearer to the street and to the
barn (see Fig. 8), and, to my certain knowledge, has had
more manure for the past forty years. Even since I have
owned the place, nearly twenty-seven years, it has had most
manure, both because one naturally likes to have the crops-
near the public road look well, and because it is handier to
draw the manure there if there is not enough for the whole.
Aside from this, which favors the part not tiled, the repre-
sentation is absolutely fair and truthful.

The point of view was fairly chosen on the line between
the drained and undrained part, and in far enough from the
southwest edge to give the middle part of both plats, unaf-
fected by outside influences, such as prevailing winds,
storms, etc. It is true, that some varieties of trees are
thriftier growers, such as Baldwins, Astrachans, etc., but
the rows of varieties run ((cross both plats (Fig. 8); that is,
the rows are perpendicular to the street, not parallel. The
same has been true of the tillage, drilling-in of the wheat,
application of superphosphates, etc. All have been perpen-
dicular to the street, and across both plats. The same kinds
of trees (original planting) are in the same relative position
in Figs. 9 and 10. Mice, rabbits, and careless tillage, were
alike in both plats. In short, every thing is absolutely fair;
or, if unfair at all, it is unfair to the tiled part, shown in
Fig. 9.

What ailed the trees in Fig. 10? Most of those that died,
died of wet feet. In spite of the excellent slope, which aver-
ages a fall of fully three feet to the hundred, the tenacious
and compact clayey soil has been much of the seasoir super-
saturated—full of " hydrostatic water." But tree-roots (ex-

TILE DRAINAGE. 35

cept of water-growing or swamp-crowing trees, willows,
wliite elms, etc.) must iiave nir as well as moisture, as was
fully explained in Chapter II. When the proper air-spaces in
the soil are soaked full of water, the roots suffocate, so to
speak, or drown, like land animals held too long under water.
And as such animals struggle and swim to the surface to get
air, so do the roots run close to or even half upon the sur-
face, to </<'/ 0-ir. Notice the roots, especially of sugar maples
and apple-trees, if you have a chance. In my own " sugar-
cam] v1 part of the maples grow along a brook-valley on soil
rather gravelly and naturally drained. These trees strike
their roots down deep, and are very thrifty and strong. But
a part, of the trees are on wet, cold, level, upland-clay soil.
Here the roots run for rods near and even on the surface. I
used to think it was because the soil was so thin, and the
subsoil so hard and impervious; but upon further study I
am convinced that it is because it is too wet. The roots are
•• swimming on the surface v to get a chance to breathe !

The same is true in this apple-orchard. In plat 2 of Fig. 8
(compare Fig. 10). the roots grow so close to the surface, that,
even while the trees were comparatively small, a few years
of cultivation cut and broke many of their roots, and the
trees died, partly from that cause and partly from overwet-
ness in wet times, and the hard lumpy condition of the soil
in dry times.

But in plat 1 (compare Fig. 9) the roots struck down deep
into a soil aerated and rendered more mellow by tile drain-
age, and found'sufticient moisture the whole year round, but
never excessive, and were helped and not damaged by the
tillage of hoed crops growing among them.

EXACT STATISTICS OF MORTALITY.

Fig. 8 gives the means of ascertaining these. As stated,
the mark + shows just where each original tree (or tree re-
placed before the land was tiled) remains alive and thrifty,
and the mark O shows each place where one has died and

be

K

O.

£

6

TILE DRAINAGE. 37

been replaced since the land was tiled ; /. e., within 16 years.
It is an exact "graphical diagram," and will repay careful
study. Even a glance shows very many more zeros (O) in
plat 2 (Fig. 8) than in plat 1. Now count in both, if you
please, and yon will find that, in plat 2, 49 out of a total 91
have died, or almost exactly 54 per cent. But in plat 1 only
25 out of a total 175 have died, or a little over 14 per cent.
That is, nearly four times as many in proportion have died in
the part only partially tiled as in the part thoroughly tiled.
But all other causes, except drainage, have been alike in
both, or even more favorable to the part not tiled. We seem
to be simply and irresistibly shut down to the conclusion that
thorough tile drainage on this clayey soil has made four times
as many trees live, while a comparison of Figs. 9 and 10 shows
that those on the tile-drained soil are far larger and more
thrifty. I may add, that, even where original trees are still
living, they are not nearly so thrifty or productive, nor is
their fruit nearly so nice. For example, I have now, Aug.
10. nearly finished picking and marketing the Red Astra-
chans on a row which (like all the other varieties) runs across
both plats. The total yield per tree is fully 50 per cent great-
er on the tiled part ; and in size, beauty, and evenness of
shape, there is more than that amount in favor of the tiled.

A still closer, examination will show that, even in plat 2,
fewer trees died where there was best drainage. For exam-
ple, in the two rows nearest the street, only 10 out of 28 died,
or less than 36 per cent ; while in the rest of plat 2, 40 out of
63 died, or over 63 per cent. But virtually these two rows
are one-half drained ; the second from the street, by the
cellar-drain, which lies down the slope, and hence drains it
well, and ttie first from the street by the deep street-ditch,
which is only 30 feet from this row, and averages four
feet deep from the level of the trees, and which runs to with-
in three or four trees from the east corner of the plat. The
cellar-drain affects the row northwest of itself very little in-
deed, because it is uphill from the row toward the drain, and

38 TILE DRAINAGE.

a tile drain can not "efcrato" much uphill. The area of very
decidedly greatest mortality lies northwest of the cellar-
drain, between it and the main drain A B ; that is, the part
where there are no drains at a??, except on the outer edges

Still another fact : The row of trees northeast of the main
drain H I, in plat 1, has no lateral drain outside of itself , north-
east ; that is, it has only half" the benefits of drainage, and
that, too, with the main drain H I uphill from it. Well, in
this row 5 out of 12 trees have died, or over 41 per cent, while
in the rest of plat 1 (all thoroughly tiled, with drains on both
sides of each row), only 21 out of 163 trees died, or less than
13 per cent.

Let me here restate these striking facts in more concise
form.

PER CENT OF ORIGINAL TREES THAT HAVE DIED AND
BEEN REPLACED WITHIN 16 YEARS.

Where tiled both sides of each row, 13 per cent.

Where half tiled, that is, on one side of

each row, - - - - - 36 to 41 per cent.
Where not tiled at all to speak of, - 63 per cent.

It is fair to add once more, that the present thrift and
bearing capacity of the trees are about in the same ratio.

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE UPON WHEAT.

As to this point, the companion pictures, Figs. 9 and 10,
tell the story. In Fig. 9 (tiled) the wheat is nearly all headed
(June 5th of a very late season, 1891) ; is about four feet
high, or up to the waist of a six-foot man, and is thick and
thrifty. In Fig. 10 the wheat is a full week later, is just be-
ginning to head ; is about two feet high, and so thin you can
see the knees and almost the feet of the man who stands in
it. The wheat in Fig. 9 at harvest had 33 shocks per acre ;
and that in Fig. 10, 22 shocks per acre. I gave explicit orders
to have the two plats separated in stacking and threshing ;
but by a misunderstanding of the men it was not done,
greatly to my disappointment. The difference, I know,

TILE DRAINAGE. 39

would have been still greater ; this, too, in spite of the fact
that the shade in Fig. 9 is far the most dense and most inju-
rious to the wheat yield. In other fields, after more unfavor-
able winters I have sometimes seen tile drainage more than
double the wheat yield, and sometimes even make the entire
difference between a failure and a good crop.

Now, the striking facts given above are not of my imagina-
tion, nor of my creation, except as I caused them, or, rather,
occasioned them, by tiling one plat and not the other. In-
deed, I had not noticed the effects so fully before this sum-
mer ; for, not very long after I tiled the orchard as described,
I left the farm for about eleven years, with only an occasion-
al visit. I had even almost forgotten that the land in plat 2
(.Fig. 8) was not fully tiled, though I saw in general that the
trees and crops were not so good there. But when I return-
ed to my farm this spring, residing on the farm now and
managing and working it myself, these facts thrust them-
selves upon my attention ; and the more carefully I exam-
ined them the more striking did they appear, and the more
surely were they seen to be due to tile drainage I presume
that, in all, over fifty gentlemen from various parts of the
State and of the United States have visited the farm dur-
ing the past four months. I have called the attention of
all of them to these facts, and all have agreed that they are
most striking, and most conclusively in favor of thorough
tile drainage, at least for orchards and wheat, on clayey
soils, even where quite rolling. 1 had the photographs tak-
en for Figs. 9 and 10, and others that follow, and now publish
them in order that there may be an exact, public, and per-
manent record of the facts — an ocular demonstration of the
effects of drainage.

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE UPON CLOVER.

Some of my good friends who own and till farms of sandy
loam, or limestone " drift " soil, which are naturally drained,
fertile, and adapted to clover, wheat, fruits, and root crops,

TILE DKAINAGE. 41

seem to feel and write (in spite of occasional disclaimers) as
if clover were a means of creating fertility, a sufficient ma-
nure in itself to keep up fertility under cropping, and even
increase it, without commercial fertilizers or much manure
from live stock. 1 wish they could try my rather cold and
naturally unresponsive clayey soil. My chief difficulty has
V)een to get clover itself to grow well and regularly. It is a reg-
ular and reliable crop with me only on land that has been
tile-drtdncd and considerably fertilized, or else surface-drained
by plowing it in high, narrow "lands," with deep dead-fur-
rows, and v.-'i-y heavily manured at some previous time, or
directly for the crop with which the clover is sown. No crop
in my whole list responds so promptly both to tile drainage
and to fertilizers as the clover crop.

Figs. 11 and 12 are companion photoengravings showing
the effects of drainage upon clover. Fig. 11 is tile-drained ;
Fig. 12 is not. In all other respects the treatment was the
same, except that the land shown in Fig. 12 lies nearer the
street and nearer the barn ; has had more manure in the past,
and has a hotter slope, easterly, than that in Fig. 11, which
is westerly. Both were in winter wheat in the fall of 1889,
drilled in the same day or consecutive days ; both were seed-
ed to clover and timothy alike in all respects, and the same
day, in March, 1890, and both were mown in September of
that fall, and weeds, stubble, clover, and timothy were left
as a mulch on the ground. About four quarts of clover and
six of timothy per acre were sown on both alike. The clover
in Fig. 12 came up pretty well, but did not stand the first
winter. In Fig. 12 there is not enough clover to prevent the
hay from being sold as clear timothy. In Fig. 11, especially
where superphosphate was used, it was nearly clear clover ;
that is, the clover was so heavy that it lodged, over much of
the field, and virtually smothered the timothy. If clover is
a good thing to help improve land, and it unquestionably is,
then we owners of clayey farms must tile-drain our land to
get clover as a reliable crop, in order to improve our land

TILE DRAINAGE. 43

thereby. On the undrained part of the plat, Fig. 12, we got
very little clover, even with the use of superphosphate — not
enough, as remarked already, to prevent the timothy from
being sold as " clear timothy" in any city market. In short,
tlie tile-drained land had good clover, and that not tiled had al-
most none, as seen in Figs. 11 and 12. The photographs were
taken June 5th. Neither the timothy nor the clover had be-
gun to head, as they had been kept back greatly by the late
and very disastrous May frost.

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE ON THE VALUE OF MANURES
AND FERTILIZERS.

In Chapter II., numbers 3 and 4, 1 have given the theory,
and the reason why tile drainage should increase the good
effects of manures and fertilizers. I now give a few facts.

In the fall of 1889 I used $5.25 worth of best superphos-
phate per acre, on about 5 acres of wheat, and none on an-
other strip, side by side, of similar land and treated alike.
About a third of each strip was not then tile-drained; the rest
was. The fertilizer increased the wheat 11 bushels per acre,
giving 36 bushels per acre against 25 on the untiled ; that is,
it paid twice its cost the first crop. But the point now is,
that you could see little benefit on the untiled end of tJie strip ;
but on the tiled end I should judge the yield was doubled ;
while on the whole it was increased not quite 50 per cent.
This year I cut and raked and drew the hay on the two strips
separately. Five acres of the unfertilized gave 12 large
loads, and the fertilized five acres (10x80 rods) gave 16 large
loads, as nearly the same size as the men could make them.
But the gain on the untiled part (one-third the whole, and
clear timothy) was only one load, while the gain on the tiled
part (two-thirds of the whole and nearly clear clover) was
three loads instead of two, as it should have been to be in the
same ratio with the other.

I could give other examples, but this will suffice. One
great advantage of tile drainage on clayey soils is, that it

Fig. 13.— Timothy on tiled land. Compare with Fig. U. and SrV explaua-
ation in the printed matter herewith.

Fi<j. 14.— Timothy on land not tiled. ^Compare with Fig. 18, and see full
explanation in the printed matter herewith.

46 TILE DRAINAGE.

makes manures and fertilizers tell so much better. It is most
fortunate for us owners of clayey farms, that good commer-
cial fertilizers give such remarkable results on them as soon
as they are tiled.

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE ON THE PERMANENCE OF
FERTILIZERS AND CROPS, AND UPON WEEDS.

The companion photo-engravings, Figs. 18 and 14, illus-
trate this. The photographs were both taken June 5, 1891,
before the timothy had begun to show any signs of heading.
In Fig. 18 the land is tiled ; in Fig. 14, not. All other condi-
tions were alike, except, as in all the other cases, that the un-
tiled part lies nearest the street and the barn, and Ms hnd most
manure in the past 80 years, to my certain knowledge, and
has a better slope. Now examine the engravings. In Fig.
18 the timothy is very dense and thrifty, about two feet
high, and scarcely a weed or plantain could be found. In
Fig. 14 the timothy is thin, scarcely covers the ankles, and is
full of weeds, especially of that miserable pest of thin, wet
soils, the broad-leaved plantain, large numbers of which are
clearly seen in the engraving, or, at least, in the original
photograph. The two photographs are of the two parts (end
to end) of one strip. Both were sown to timothy and clover
mixed, in the growing wheat, six years ago last spring, with
superphosphate and fine, pure bone meal, but no manure.
In two years most of the clover had a gone out," especially
on the part not tiled, Fig, 14. Gradually the timothy has
thinned out, too, on the undrained part, and weeds and
plantain have come in in its place, and crowded out still
more of the timothy. This year the tiled part had fully twice
as much My per acre, and it was as fine timothy as you or I
ever saw— 40 big loads (cocked over night, and compact) on
the whole ten acres. On the tiled part the timothy was as
heavy as ever before— as heavy as I ever saw, and it seems
almost a sin to plow the sod up for wheat, as I am now doing
(Aug. 10, 1891), simply because it has been "down " in grass

48 TILE DRAINAGE.

so long, and because I have enlarged the field from adjacent
pasture land, and want it all alike, to start a regular rotation
by plats.

EFFECTS OF TILE DRAINAGE ON BARN ROOM.

Seventeen years ago last spring I built a bank barn out of
four old ones, 39x7:4 ft., with some additions. The hay runs
to the basement floor in 24x44 ft. of it, and it is quite roomy,
holding 100 tons of hay by cubic contents, though the eaves-
posts are only 14 feet above the top of the basement in
front, and 7 feet in the rear. When I built it, both my
neighbors and myself thought it was abundant, and more
too, for all the hay and grain I could raise on my little farm
of 126 acres, 26 of it so shaded by orchard and maple grove as
not to give full crops or pasture. But I have since sold 11
acres of my meadow and rotation land (leaving only 65 now
arable, including orchard). Fig. 15 shows how very much
too small ike barn already is for my crops. The barn is
crammed full from basement floor to ridge-pole ; gradually
filled, settled and refilled during four weeks of haying and
harvest, and there are (see Fig. 15) four large stacks outside,
two of grain and two of hay— 75 large loads of hay and grain
outside, and 95 large loads inside, all from 65 acres of tile-
drained land ; for the plats in the engravings classed as
" not drained," and amounting in all to about 15 acres, are
now (August, 1891) nearly all tiled, the work being done last
winter and spring too late to have much effect .on the crops
this year, and hence fairly classed as "not drained " in the
contrasts.

The effect of tile drainage on my bam room has been such
as is shown in Fig. 15. I must next spring, if possible, en-
large the barn to nearly twice its present capacity, by lifting
the roo/and not much increasing the ground size of the barn.
If I " pull down my barns and build greater " I trust it will
not be in the spirit of the man in the Scriptures, who was
called " a fool" because he proposed to " take his ease (loaf),

50 TILE DRAINAGE.

eat, drink, and be merry," like the pig or the ox ; but in the
spirit of thankfulness that even we owners of clayey farms
have been given, in those farms, almost a mine of wealth, if
we only use the brains given us by Him who gave us such
clayey land ; if we use our brains, I say, and develop the
latent wealth of our farms by tile drainage, good tillage, ma-
nures, fertilizers, and clover.

And I have pictured and described thus much of the ef-
fects of these five handmaidens of success, upon my own
farm, in hopes of persuading more of my brother-farmers on
such farms to take the first step toward real success, by
tiling each year some small portion, at least, of their farms.

I may add that now, Aug. 10, 1891, the winter apples on the
tiled part of the orchard are -simply grand, hanging nearly as
full as they blossomed, for we sprayed the trees with London
purple to kill the codling moths and to prevent u wormy ap-
ples ; " and though we had the rainiest ten days of the season
just during the time of spraying, yet the spraying, as is evi-
dent now, did very much good. Fig. 16 gives a " specimen
tree " of Baldwins. The photograph was taken about Oct. 1 ,
just before the apples were picked, after this paragraph was
first written. I give the figure as an incentive to owners of
clayey land, first to tile and then to plant at least a small
orchard. The apples do not show so clearly as I hoped ;
but when Baldwin limbs hang clear down to the ground, you
may know that they are very heavily loaded.*

* The proof comes to me Nov. 14. The apples have been picked. This
tree, shown in the picture, yielded 15 bushels of beautiful Baldwins.
The tree is 17 years old. The whole orchard yielded over 1100 bushels,
and scarcely one-fourth of the trees bore.— W. T. C.

TILE DKALNAGE. 51

CHAPTER IV.
Does Tillage Pay Better than Grazing ?

Nearly all that was said in the second chapter was based
on the assumption that tillage pays best; that the actual
plowing of the ground, and the planting and tillage of crops,
at least on a part of the farm, pay better than exclusive
grazing with no 'agriculture or horticuUwe proper ; that is,
little tillage of farm, or planting of garden, orchard, and vine-
yard. The assumption has not been in favor of exclusive
vegetable farming, but of " mixed farming ; " not in the sense
of confused raising of very many kinds of crops and stock,
but in the only proper sense of the term; that is, the judi-
cious blending of one or more kinds of animal farming with
one or more kinds of cereal and vegetable farming, both be-
ing of kinds adapted to the soil of the farm and the tastes
and talents of the farmer, and so an anged as not to bring
conflict of work.

It may be well to say a few words directly in favor of this
assumption, in addition to the facts given in Chapter III ,
and to review what is known or believed concerning the
agricultural development of the human race through its
various stages of growth. Such a review, I believe, will es-
tablish the truth that, by far the largest population can be
supported on any given area under agriculture and horti-
cultuw—thut is, the plowing and tillage of farm and garden,
and that these are the most profitable.

The first stage in the agricultural development of man as
man, we suppose to have been what is called the savage
state. Men then had language more or less develoj ed, and
some power of making and using rude weapons and imple-
ments of the chase. They hunted the forests, fished the
streams, and picked berries, nuts, acorns, and the like ; that
is, they lived upon earth's spontaneous products, chiefly

52 TILE DKA1NAGE.

flesh and fish. Under this "forest " life (for savage means
" pertaining to the forest") it took perhaps several hundreds
or even thousands of acres to give food to a single individual.
There was no tillage of cultivated crops, no rearing of do-
mestic animals, and the clothing was made of the skins of
wild animals killed in the chase.

Next in development came the barbarous, or nomadic stage,
when men began to keep domestic animals, living mainly
on their meat, and milk and its products, and clothing them-
selves with woven wool and goat's hair, with a scanty tillage
of roots, cereals, and a few fruits. They lived a nomadic
life yet, roaming the open plains and valleys in tribes, pas-
turing their herds and flocks on the spontaneous vegetation,
the stronger tribes getting the richer plains and valleys.
There was little tillage of crops as yet, for there was neither
individual ownership of land, nor permanence of location,
even for the tribe, and the weaker tribe was always liable to
be driven away from any crops it might have sown and
tilled, just as it was about to harvest and use them. Under
this system, if system it might be called, there was an
advance over the preceding in the possible population to be
sustained on a given area, and a few score or perhaps hun-
dreds of acres would support a single person.

Next came the stage of agricw to/re, properly so called, based
on permanent location of the tribe, and finally of the small
nation, with allotment of portions of land to individuals for
more or less permanent use, either by annual rental, long-
time rental, for example 49 years as among the Jews, or by
actual sale. This gave individual reward proportioned to
individual effoit, the only spur ever discovered sufficiently
powerful to produce intelligent and persistent effort. Under
this spur, vegetables, cereals, and fruits were increased in
variety, and improved in quality and productiveness ; while
the same was true in regard to the various kinds of domestic
animals. Upon this basis of a permanent agriculture grew
up manufactures and commerce; high civilization became

TILE DRAINAGE. 53

possible, and was gradually realized ; while, even with the
greatly increased ratio of food consumption, seven or eight
acres of land sufficed for the support of each inhabitant.
That is the ratio in Ohio to-day, where we have 88 persons
to the square mile, or one to each 7i acres. Carnivorous ani-
mals, that once destroyed the meat supply, and were of no
real use themselves to man, are themselves destroyed ; and
the short -horn beef, fed 011 purely vegetable food, and
weighing' 1800 Ibs. at three years old, is raised on the product
of as few acres as the fox or wolf that weighed a few pounds.
Meat became far more abundant per acre, and even per capi-
ta; and the vegetable, cereal, and fruit supply became
almost infinitely better and more abundant, both by the
development of better and more prolific varieties, and the
invention of machinery for their tillage and harvest.

The highest stage is that of horticulture— garden culture ;
that is, of intensive agriculture, with small farms tilled like
gardens, as in Holland and Belgium, where nearly all the
land is thoroughly cultivated in rotation, with the careful
saving of all manure, where human food is less of meat and
more of fish, fruit, vegetables, and dairy products, and where
(Belgium) there are 497 people to the square mile, and about
an acre and a quarter feeds, clothes, and shelters each inhab-
itant.

This very rapid general survey, which might be greatly
widened in scope and filled out in detail, seems to show that
the position assumed in Chapter II. is a tenable and true
one; viz., that tillage of the soil does pay better, and sup-
port a larger population than exclusive animal industry, graz-
ing in summer and feeding in winter, with little or no tillage.
Nature pays for the increased labor put upon the soil.
If any doubt still exists, we may dispel it by comparing
those parts of Ohio, for example, where we once had dairy-
ing as an almost exclusive specialty, with no plowing and no
raising of grain, even for flour for the family or feed for the
live stock,^with those other regions where the thorough till-

54 TILE DRAINAGE.

age of a large part of each farm is practiced, with some live
stock and a rotation of crops. The dairy regions of the
Western Reserve are good samples of the former, while
Stark and Wayne and the Miami Valley counties are good
samples of the latter. Formerly in the dairy regions, as al-
ready intimated, scarcely an acre was plowed on each farm ;
all the flour and even most of the potatoes and vegetables
were bought, and not more than 15 to 20 cows could be kept
on each hundred acres, and even these at the expense of
considerable costly mill feed. Under such exclusive dairy-
ing, with permanent pastures and meadows, when prices of
dairy products declined soon after the war, very many farm-
ers, failing to make a living, sold their clay farms, usually to
their more forehanded neighbors (who thus increased their
grazing area), and moved west or into the towns. Houses
and barns for a time went to decay on farms thus deserted
and massed into larger ones ; farms depreciated fully one-
half in market value; country schools and churches lan-
guished, both for lack of funds and of attendance, and a de-
crease of rural population and prosperity occurred, not unlike
that in England some 300 years ago under the almost ex-
clusive grazing and decadence of tillage induced by the
famous u fine-wool craze."

The way out of this for us here has begun to come by a
gradual return to or beginning of tillage ; for the plow is the
forerunner of civilization, and the promoter of agricultural
wealth. Under surface drainage by plowing in high narrow
lands, and heavily manuring, good crops of cereals and veg-
etables may usually be grown on clayey soils, and the heavy
drain be stopped for family flour and potatoes and fruit, and
mill feed for the dairy. But the possible area of tillage is
very small under this system. I believe that this sort of
land, aggregating perhaps a third or a quarter of the area of
the State of Ohio, can never be made profitable for extended
agriculture, general farming, and fruit, grain, and vegetable
growing, except by gradually tile-draining a few acres each

TILE DRAINAGE. 55

year, and bringing it into productive shape by manures or
phosphates, and by wise tillage, thorough cultivation, and
free use of clover. And I feel sure that this land thus treat-
ed will soon become equal, or nearly so, to the fertile sandy
loams of the Miami and Scioto valleys, and of Stark, Wayne,
R:chland, and simil ir counties of Ohio, for the growth of
wheat, clover, and general farm crops and fruits. But it
takes more skill and patience to manage such land. It takes
more manure or fertilizers at the first; but their effects are
wonderfully lasiiny. But 1 believe that, without tile drainage
as a basis, it will be impossible to make such clayey land fit
for tillage, clover and rotation of crops to any wide extent—
in fact, fit for any thing but a scanty and non paying agri-
culture, chiefly gra/ing. I am fully convinced that, on such
lands, tile drainage will pay, provided it is made simply tlw
basis, and is followed by a wise use of all the manure that
can be made and saved from farm live stock of right kinds
and good quality, by a free use of clover, and by such use of
high-grade superphosphates as may seem wise on actual and
careful experiment with them.

As a rule, superphosphates show far more striking effects
on clayey soils that need and have tile drainage than on the
more sandy loams, or on the limestone soils of Southwestern
Ohio, or the black soils with limestone basis found in the
northwestern quarter of the State. I think the moderate use
of superphosphates wise upon these clayey soils if the ma-
nure supply is short ; for, even after they are tiled, they need
added fertility at once over their whole area to insure strong
growth of wheat and clover. And if one is trying to bring
under cultivation considerable new areas each year, the pos-
sible supply of manure from live stock is not sufficient, and
clover as yet needs " a starter "to make it grow rank and
strong enough to have of itself much fertilizing value. For
the past six or eight years I have found high-grade super-
phosphates exactly the help I have needed to give the land a
start ; for it is a large undertaking to lay 15 miles of tiles,

56 TILE DRAINAGE.

reclaiming nearly 65 acres, and fitting it for tillage and rota-
tion of crops, and bringing it up to a high and paying grade
of fertility. If I had sooner known the real value of super-
phosphates on my soil as plant-food (not mere stimulant,
" whisky"), and as a means of starting successful wheat and
clover growing and rotation — if I had known this, I say,
fifteen years ago as well as I do now, I could certainly have
brought up the farm far more rapidly, and I think, too. With
much better net financial results. As it was, I at nrs.t
bought a good deal of manure from town, and, of course,
made and saved all I could, But that was greatly insuffi-
cient. A shrewd neighbor, Judge S. II. Thompson, once
said to me, " Of course, you raise good wheat. There's just
about enough stable manure in Hudson village for one clay
farm, and you buy all of that!"

As to whether tile drainage followed by tillage has paid
oh my own farm, which is a fair sample of the noii-arable
clay farms of the Western Keserve, as to this question I have
not now a shadow of doubt. Twenty-six years ago I began
with sheep-farming. That did not give work for man and
team, and a team the farmer must have. But horses wrill
soon "eat their own heads off" if not kept at steady and
profitable work.

Then I tried dairying, and, as I did not want my wife to be
a dairy drudge. I sold the milk at the cheese-factory, and
finally to customers on a village milk-route. That paid bet-
ter—the last quite well. But still there was not steady and
remunerative work for man and team when milking and de-
livery were over each day. Then I tried (as already stated)
plowing in narrow lands with deep dead-furrows for surface-
drainage ; but this drained off only the water on the surface
and near the surface, and frequent crop -failures, partial or
entire, followed, especially where I plowed more than I could
heavily manure; and clover was very uncertain, as it heaved
out badly with frost the first winter. This convinced me
that our clayey soils not tile- drained are not fitted for ex-

TILE DRAINAGE. 57

tensive plowing and a successful rotation of crops. So I be-
gan thorouvli drainage about 15 years ago, having before that
time " tiled out" several " swales,'1 or depressions, and seen
the excellent results. As already stated, I thoroughly tiled
about 13 acres of my young orchard, laying laterals between
all rows of trees, 38 feet apart, and 30 inches deep. This field
had been quite well manured in the past— much better than
any other equal area on the farm. But still the crops would
fail, as already stated. But since the drainage, this land,
and all other areas drained and fertilized, have been reliable
for tillage and crop rotation.

The big wheat crop on the orchard, to wit, 465 bushels
from 10 acres, already mentioned, and the fine clover that
followed, were my first rewards for tile drainage. They so
encouraged me, that, in 1878, I undertook the thorough
drainage of 8| acres of smooth meadow, and then of 36 acres
of rough and exceedingly unproductive pasture land. It was
so thin in soil, and so subject to drouth in May, July, and
August, that it was of little real value. The whole 36 acres
would hardly give summer pasture to seven cows. Mr.
Theodore ("lark, of southern Portage County (a fruit and
wheat region), came by one day during a drouth, and stopped
and said :

"I believe that is the most barren-looking field I ever saw.
It looks like Sahara. r

And it was true then, 16 years ago. The exclusive and
close grazing of this whole region left the soil dry and hot in
summer, and showers could not seem to fall upon it any more
than upon Sahara. They would go around us, following the
forests, swamps, and water-courses in all directions from us.
In particular on my farm it would not rain, oftentimes, when
it rained on a large forest less than half a mile north, and an-
other not half a mile southeast of me.

o8 TILE IX

EFFECTS OF TILING, TILLAGE, AND TREE-PLANTING UPON
RAINFALL.

Well, I went ahead, and now I have nearly 65 acres tiled,
tilled, and in rotation with line crops ; 15 acres of dense
orchard, hedges, and roadside maples, a veritable green oasis
where once there was what seemed almost a desert, often, in
July, August, and September. Wheat, clover, heavy timo-
thy, dense orchard, maples, and hedges, with their cool and
solid green, invite showers, and th«y com?. Particularly I
notice that the orchard, which extends northerly to my ma-
ple grove, while the latter merges into the large forest still
further north, owned by several of my neighbors— this dense
orchard (with the big green crops) seems to draw the showers
southward from the north woods, and northward from the
south woods, so that now the showers are solid over the
whole farm. I think the orchard well nigh pays for itself in
the increased rainfall My neighbors all about me, too, are
tile-draining more, and plowing and cultivating more, and
substituting a mixed agriculture for the exclusive dairy-
grazing specialty that had proved so un profitable and so
drouth-producing ; and the whole region is becoming better
watered, less subject to drouth in summer, and far more fer-
tile arid profitable in crops.

To return to my draining : I had drained all Jnit about 15
acres of the 65, when, in May, 1880, 1 was unexpectedly made
Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, and left
the farm, and suspended the drainage almost entirely for
eleven years. In May, Ib86, I was as unexpectedly chosen
President of the Iowa Agricultural (College. November 13,
1890, 1 resigned that presidency, and within a week I had
begun, and within six weeks nearly finished, the remaining
15 acres.

I have given these personal details, and might give many
more, to show why I believe in the thorough, systematic
tile drainage of such soils as mine, which by nature are unfit
for extended tillage. From past experience and experiments

TILE DRAINAGE. 59

1 am convinced that I can take the average slightly rolling
shale-clay lands of Northern Ohio (and similar latitudes and
conditions), and, by tiling and proper tillage, and use of clo-
ver, manures, and superphosphates, within five years bring
such land up profitably to a capacity of 30 to 35 bushels of
wheat per acre, and clover and other crops in proportion. I
have many times had from 30 up to even 46i bushels of
wheat per acre, on ail the land that was both tiled and ma-
mired or superphosphated, and the crops the first three years
on the average have paid for the tiling and the fertilizers,
and sometimes much sooner than that. I feel sure, there-
fore, ,/irsJ, that the tillage of a part of our farms pays better
than exclusive grazing and feeding, on all soils fit for culti-
vation. Second, I believe it pays to fit for cultivation by tiling
portions of each clayey farm not fitted by nature. Tiling
is the first step toward agricultural and financial success on
thousands of clayey farms in many parts of Ohio and other
States, and especially on the " Western Reserve," most of
whose soil is like mine. Still further, I believe that the dif-
ference in actual average selling price between these clayey
farms and those of the naturally drained kind, of the Miami
and Scioto Valley counties, if expended judiciously in tiling,
fertilizers, and clover seed, will make these farms pay as
well PS those, and immensely better than now or formerly
under exclusive dairying or sheep-farming.

There are other large areas of a different sort all over the
land that need either partial drainage or systematic drain-
age, but at wider intervals than the compact clays require.
First, as to partial drainage : All over the rolling prairies of
Iowa and bordering prairie States, and even of the sandy
loams, are "swales, "or "sloughs," and " cat-swamps," or
small wet " pockets " that neerl perhaps one or two good
four-inch drains put through them to make them arable and
most produtive. Without such tiling they often produce
little but swamp grass. They have crooked margins or
boundaries, and are a serious hindrance in the tillage and

60 TILE DRAINAGE.

harvest operations in large rectangular fields. The agricul-
ture is crooked, and in patches, where it might otherwise be
large and straight and rectangular. I have already spoken
(page 14) of the loss resulting in all tillage and harvesting
operations with a team, and especially with large team im-
plements like the twine-binder. As to the drainage of such
fields, Mr. T. B. Terry says (admirably as usual), in his prize
farm report (Ohio Agricultural Keport, 1882, page 643),
"There maybe some difference of opinion as to whether
underdraining pays where all the land must be drained ;
but there can be no doubt that it pays to drain waste places,
such as cat-swamps, swales, and low clay spots in otherwise
fertile fields. It is more work to cultivate around them than
to go right through ; or, perhaps, in a dry time we may pre-
pare the ground and sow the seed, only to have it destroyed
by water. Thus we have all the work to do and no crop,
except, perhaps, flag, wild grass, or frogs.7' Mr. Terry him-
self thoroughly drained all such places on his farm, and
found that it paid a very high rate of interest on the cost of
the drainage. I am amazed that all who, like him, have
chiefly fertile, sandy, and gravelly loams, with some clayey
admixture (like Stark and Wayne Counties and Miami Val-
ley counties), or who have rich, porous farms of rolling
prairie soil, with similar depressions — I say I am amazed
that they do not do the small amount of tile-draining neces-
sary to make their farming a delight instead of " a weariness
to the flesh." On such farms tile drainage is least expen-
sive of all in proportion to area and benefits derived.

Next best it pays, probably, to tile-drain the black-soil
lands, once heavily wooded, for example like those in the
great limestone region of Western and especially of North-
western Ohio. These soils are less porous than the prairie
soils last described, but far more porous than the stiff, clayey
soils first described, and like my own farm. As a rule these
lands are more level than either of the other classes, and most
of them were originally timbered. The soil and subsoil are

TILE DRAINAGE. 61

often so porous that the drains will " draw" two, three, or
even four rods on each side ; that is, the drains can be four,
six, or even eight rods apart, -and yet drain the land quite
thoroughly. Even without tile drainage, pretty good wheat
may be raised on such land by plowing it in high narrow
lands with deep dead-furrows kept well open ; but on this
plan there is often a good deal of loss of wheat along the
dead-furrows.

Sometimes this kind of land is so level that outlets for
tile drains can be obtained only by digging long open ditch-
es, paid for by township or county funds raised on the equal-
ized-assessment plan. After such outlet-ditches are dug it
would seern to be the height of folly for the individual farm-
er to fail to get the full benefit of the big ditch he has helped
to pay for, get his pay, I say, by systematically "tiling out"
at necessary intervals all the land he intends to till. In such
regions they speak of "tiling out" the land; they really
"tile out" the water, and leave the land fitted for the best
agriculture.

It thus seems clear to me that tillage pays better than ex-
clusive grazing and feeding, even if tiling must precede it ;
partial tiling, as simply in the depressions of soils otherwise
naturally drained ; or thorough tiling by parallel laterals,
though at wide intervals, as in the black soils of the prairie
regions, or the limestone regions once limbered; or even
where the laterals must be not more than two or three rods
apart, as on many of the more compact shale- clays of the
Western Keserve. As already intimated in substance, the
present prices of these latter lands seem to me to make them
far cheaper than the lands of the far West, which are often
too arid for successful agriculture year after year ; cheaper.
too, than the high-priced, fertile, naturally drained lands of
Ohio— provided only that these clayey lands be tiled eco-
nomically and well, and be wisely tilled, fertilized, and
cropped thereafter. At all events I should be very slow to
sell a farm well located in the intellectual, social, and moral

H2 TILE DRAINAGE.

atmosphere of the Western Reserve, and move to any region
I know of, and buy a farm, relative prices and advantages
being all carefully considered.

CHAPTER V.
Where to Drain.

The facts and principles given in Chapters III. and IV.
help us to answer this question so far as it relates to the gen-
eral localities and kinds of land that need and will pay for
tile drainage. For if, as I believe, henceforth with our ex-
isting and constantly increasing population, and prices of
land, the tillage of crops of cereals, grasses, and root crops
in rotation, with live stock as one factor, will pay better and
furnish more food^per acre, and give employment and sub-
sistence to a larger population than is possible under ex-
clusive grazing and feeding of live stock without the plow
as a factor; — if this^be true, then on our clayey farms all
those areas should be thoroughly tiled which are needed for
tillage under such a system of farming ; and certainly on
our more sandy loams all ^' cat-swamps," "swales," and
tc sloughs " should be " tiled out " which are not only them-
selves unfit for tillage and crop-bearing during; average sea-
sons, but which run diagonally or crooked or scattered
through fields otherwise rectangular, and the most of whose
area (i. e., of the fields) is naturally underdmined and fit for
tillage ; for such spots and streaks of non-arable.] land in
such fields render all tillage and harvesting operations an-
gular, crooked, annoying, and expensive, as illustrated in
Chapter I. by Fig. 5. If you could drum together all these
wet spots and streaks, like troops at general muster or on
dress parade, and 'put them in one straight solid strip along
one' side of the field, or out of sight in some back lot, it
would not be so bad ; but like our sins, or like the " poor

TILE DRAINAGE. 63

relations*' of the rich and the "skeletons in the closets''
of the high-born and aristocratic, these " cat-swamps,"
" swales,7' and the like, thrust themselves upon our notice
every " 'bout1' we plow, cultivate, or reap. Like the ghost
of Banquo they " will not down." But you can "down"
them by putting their surplus water " down" some 80 inches
into well laid tile drains, and can thus make them the most
productive parts of your whole farm.

But the question where to drain also includes many prac-
tical questions as to the exact location and direction of the
main drains and the laterals or collecting drains of a system.
It is a good rule here to follow nature, but not blindly nor
too closely. Adam was put into the garden "to dress it."
Man by his intellect has, or may have, a real though limited
dominion, not only over the beasts and birds and fishes, but
over the earth and its processes of production. And so while
we "follow nature" we should lead her— not follow blindly,
but with constant improvements.

THE LOCATION OF MAIN DRAIN*.

In general they should follow the "dry brooks; " that is,
take the general direction and location which the water
takes, in a wet time, to get off from the land ;. for water,
taking its own course along the surface, naturally takes what
scientists call "the path of least resistance." But man can
improve upon this for railways, roads, tile drains, etc. Kail-
ways follow the rivers and creeks up the mountain side, or
even on more level land ; but they constantly straighten the
course and lengthen the curves, and improve the grades by
cuts and fills and tunnels so as to get a path of less resist-
ance under high speed and with heavy loads for the traffic of
the road. Just so the main drains in a system should in
ycni'ml follow but straighten the dry brooks of a field, length-
ening the curves and correcting the grades and making
them uniform. Fig. 5, page 14, illustrates this ; also Fig. 8,
page 31. No one should undertake to tile a field without

64 TILE DRAINAGE.

carefully noticing the natural courses, for one or two sea-
sons, in high water after heavy rains or thaws.

THE DIRECTION OF THE LATERALS.

The same rule holds in regard to laterals. They should in
general follow, but straighten and improve, the courses taken
by surface-water in time of freshet or flood. If, however,
the slope is not very rapid, convenience may lead us to vary
the laterals slightly from the direct line down the slope. In
my own first thorough drainage, convenience amounting
almost to necessity seemed to demand this. The lield shown
in Fig. 8 was set out with rows of young apple-trees as an
orchard. These rows, of course, for convenience, were set
parallel to each other and to the sides of the field. But the
exact slope was slightly angling with the sides, as shown by
the darts in Fig. 8. Now, if the laterals had followed this
exact course they would have run into or under apple-trees
at many points, and so they were laid parallel to the side of
the field to which the slope of the field was most nearly
parallel, and were laid just half way between the apple-tree
rows. This is almost a necessity in an orchard, and is a
great convenience, often, in other fields. As I shall show in
the chapter." How to Drain, "one can economize very greatly
in the expensive hand labor of digging, by plowing the field
so as to leave a dead-furrowT where each drain is to be, or by
running two deep furrows, one in the bottom of the other,
with a strong team — four horses if necessary — before digging
at all by hand. I have often saved much in this way as well
as by filling in with the plow, both of which can best be done
if the drains are parallel with some side of the field, as the
land can be " plowed out " before digging, and " plowed in "
after laying the tiles ; and so in my own practice I have tried
to follow two general rules in thorough drainage— or, rather,
one rule, except as modified by a second ; to wit :

First, run the laterals as nearly straight down the slope as
may be done consistently with the second rule ; to wit :

TILE DUALIST AGE. 65

ti cond, make the laterals parallel with some side of the
field, and thus with the direction of plowing and team work.

A R E TH ES.K R U LES CO R RECT ?

1 stated them about as above in a recent series of articles
in The National 8tocfcman, and gave a diagram covering most
of the points brought out in Fig. 8. A contributor to that
paper soon after criticised the rules and the methods ; and as
his criticism states a popular belief which I regard as incor-
rect, I will give that criticism condensed, and also the sub-
stance of my reply, with due credit to the paper named :

He says (condensed), " I do not think Mr. C. is correct in
draining as the cut represents"7 (straight down the slope,
according to rule 1). "I want the drains to run either
crosswise or diagonally from the way the field is to be
plowed, and also diagonally down the slope instead of
straight. Water naturally runs down hill, and it will not
run sldewise in order to get into the tiles. Now, if you plow
the field in the same way the drains run, the water will
follow the furrows a long distance before it will find a drain,
after the ground gets full enough of water for it to run. The
.soomv you </<t it to a drain, the better. I should run the mains
diagonally across the field, and the laterals diagonally the
other way/' This is the substance of the criticism on this
point. The entire criticism is based on the assumption that,
when rain comes abundantly enough to cause the tiles to
Mow, the action of the water is as follows : First, it soaks the
ground as full as it will hold, and then the surplus water
washes along ilu1 surf (ice, or along the depressions of the
furrows, until it conies directly over a line of tiles, and then
soaks straight down into it. This is wholly wrong. The
water and drains should never act in this way. If the water
flows along the surface thus until it comes directly over the
drain, and then soaks down into it, first, it will gully and
wash the surface, and then it will wear small vertical channels
down into the drain, and carry grit down, and soon obstruct

(56 TILE DRAINAGE.

the drain. The water should always find the tiles by soaking
directly down into the soil wherever it falls, and then, under
the force of gravity, or hydrostatic pressure, soaking slowly
sidewise under ground through the pores of the soil, and
entering the tiles at their joints at the sides and bottom, not
the top. Such is the teaching of all the authorities on
drainage. Such is the way the water and tiles actually
behave on my farm, according to my careful observations.

If the theory of my critic were correct it should be carried
to its full extent, and the drains run square across the slope.
Then the water could run straight down the slope until it
came directly above each drain, and at <>nce sink straight
down into it. This, I repeat, is exactly what we do not want.
One chief object of tile drainage is to prevent surf ace- wash,
and to prevent the water's flowing along the surface at all ;
to open the large pores of the soil straight down, nearly to
the level of the tiles, and keep them open so that, when rain
falls or snow melts it may go down these open pores and
work off as it descends gradually sidewise in the soil to the
tiles; this prevents surface-wash, filters the water, and leaves
all plant-food in the soil where the roots can get it.

Fi0. 18.-— Cross-section of tiles properly laid; /. e., straight down the
slope, so that the siirface at right angles to the drains shall be a level
line, and the water seek the drains equally from both sides, and the
tiles drain the whole ground to uniform depth.

Fig. 18 roughly represents the way water seeks tile drains
where they are properly laid — that is, straight down the
slope. It gives a cross-section of two tile drains to one who

TILE DRAINAGE.

67

faces down hill. It will be seen that the surface of the
ground crosswist- of each drain will be level ; and as the strata
of soil and subsoil in bowlder clays that need drainage are
usually nearly horizontal (the slopes being made in the past
largely by erosion and wash), the water readily follows these
strata sidewise, and a little forward down the slope until it
finds the tiles and enters them. But, now, suppose the drains

Fig. 19.— Cross-section of tiles improperly laid, crosswise of the slope.
Now, as water- can soak only downward, by gravity, and only half way
between the drains it laid at the proper distance with reference to the
porosity of the soil, it will follow that a considerable part of the land
down t he slope from each drain (A, B, C, D, and F, G, H, I, in the figure)
will not be properly drained. That is, the "suction range " of a tile
drain is about as great on level ground as down the slope, while up the
slope it has almost none, owing to the opposing force of gravity.

are laid crosswise of the slope, as in Fig. 19. As the soil
strata are practically horizontal, if the slope is at all steep then
almost no water enters the drain from the downhill side— see
Fig. 19. The darts in each figure indicate the lateral flow of
the water under hydrostatic pressure from above. But in
Fig. 19, only the water between A and D, and that between
F and I can enter the two drains from below, since water can
not flow up hill. This is all wrong. There should be no
d<>wn hill and practically useless side to a tile drain; that is, it
should run straight down the slope, and then the water can

68 TILE DKAINAGE.

soak into it equally well from both sides, as in Fig. 18, of
course soaking forward down the slope (underground)
slightly, rather than at an exact right angle from where
it soaks into the surface.

It might be supposed that the water from twice as much
space would soak down hill into the tiles (as in Fig. 18), as
on level ground ; but, practically, no more will do so. The
u suction range " of a tile drain depend more upon the po-
rosity of the soil than upon the degree of the slope. Not
only is this true theoretically, but I find it practically true,
as already stated in connection with Figs. 9 and 10, where
we saw that a drain up hill from a row of apple-trees helped
the trees very little.

One point more. The plowing of a thoroughly tiled field
should leave no dead furrows tor surface-water to follow. The
entire surface should be as level and free from depressions
as possible ; then the rains and melted snows will soak
straight down into the soil, and reach the drains largely by
pressing up from the lower level. If you dig a ditch in a
wet time you will see the water ooze slowly up from the
bottom of your ditch as you dig it— or soon after it is dug—
in clear ^rnall streams. This shows exactly how and where
the water should enter the drains; viz., from below, under
the force of hydrostatic pressure. Let me speak still more
fully of the porosity of the soil and subsoil as affected by
their stratification. Most of our subsoils, and especially the
alluvial and drift subsoils, as before remarked, lie in layers
or strata, nearly or quite horizontal. Examine fresh railway
cuts for a few miles through such soils, or dig tile drains for
a few weeks in bowlder clay, and you will see. That is,
these soils are more porous horizontally than perpendicularly.
Especially in bowlder clay I have often noticed "seams,"
layers, or "pockets" of sand or gravel, from which the
water bubbles up or seeps in as soon as you remove the im-
prisoning clay that binds it. Now, although the soils that
need drainage are most porous side wise (or horizontally),

TILE DRAINAGE. 69

yet the perpendicular and diagonal porosity is constantly
increased, especially after they are tiled, by the rains soak-
ing down and through to the tiles, and by the roots growing
down vertically and diagonally, as well as horizontally,
though to less extent horizontally, after drainage than be-
fore. And so the most of our subsoils are not, like loose
sand or granulated sugar, equally porous in all directions,
but are most porous horizontally, and next most porous ver-
tically.

Refer once more to Fig. 18, in which I have tried to illus-
trate this in a rough way. Suppose tile drains to be located
at r and D. Then the rain falling (in a dry time for exam-
ple) on the slightly uneven surface of the ground all the
way from A to B, soaks straight down, at first, at all points
on the surface, and not very much sidewise because it falls
on all points alike. If the ground is at first quite dry it
drinks in the rain rapidly and greedily, not only into the
proper air-spaces, but into the larger capillaries, which are
now empty for some distance down because the level of hy-
drostatic water is low from the general dryness If the rain
continues long enough, then all the pores, large and small,
air-spaces and capillaries, soon become filled full up to the
level of C and D. Then if the rain continues, as the water
can not go down any longer below 0 and D it will be forced
sidewise, horizontally, and sometimes diagonally, by the
force of gravity, or hydrostatic pressure, and will enter the
tiles and flow off. And the' point I wish to emphasize is,
that, if the soil acts as it should (the drains being laid
straight down the slope), the water will enter the tiles as
fast as all the pores at all points of the surface can receive and
convey it. But if the drains are laid across the slope, and
the water is carried down the slope along the surface to a
line directly over the drain, then it can soak down to the
tiles only as fast as the pores in this single narrow strip of
soil can receive and convey it down. And so, instead of
having the whole area of the field as a filter, you have simply

70 TILE DRAINAGE.

a narrow strip over each tile-drain. The result will be, that,
so far as this surface-drainage is successful, it thwarts the
purpose of tile drainage. The water will, as stated before,
even work large holes straight dowrn to the tiles, and you
will have little iiltering arid a final stoppage of the drains.
Let me once more emphasize the fact that the water should
enter the drains from their sides and bottom, and after fil-
tration through the entire soil, and not straight down from
the surface, unfiltered. The latter thwarts the purpose and
prevents the benefits of tile drainage.

RAPIDITY OF ABSORPTION AND FILTRATION.

I have spoken of this (Chapter II., section 3), and of the
fact that the soil of my farm absorbed and filtered, and my
drains carried away, about ten inches of rainfall in Februa-
ry and March, 1>91, with no surface wash, gullying, or loss
of fertility. I have this week been again reminded of the
great absorbing power of a tile-drained soil. We are plow-
ing a 36-acre field for wheat, across three plats — one timothy,
one wheat stubble, thick with young clover, and one heavy
clover where wheat was harvested (36 bushels per acre) in
1890. Tuesday, Aug. 11, the ground was rather dry to plow
-^driest in the strong clover turf, and next driest in the tim-
othy turf, dampest in the stubble and young clover. (I had
special reasons that justified wheat after wheat, and plo wing-
under the young clover, usually and justly considered bad
farming.) Tuesday noon, exactly one inch of rain fell in
about an hour, soon followed by 0.26 of an inch ; and on
Friday by 0.91 of an inch ; total, 2.17 inches. The ground
took it all in as fast as it came. The first inch did not soak
down over three inches into the clover turf not yet plowed,
and the whole 2.17 simply soaked down about seven inches
and made it scarcely damp enough to plow best. I judge
that the soil and subsoil would hold four inchesgiwre , where
tile- drained, before the drains would begin to flow. Soil
and subsoil, where drained, are like a vast sponge, quick in

TILE DBAlNAGfe 71

absorbing and efficient in retaining the moisture until there
is more than the plant-roots can hold, and then transmitting
it to the drains, rubbed of all its fertilizing matters. The
latter are retained in thr soil for the plants. This 36-acre field
is all thoroughly tiled (except between one and two acres
recently added from the pasture, and to be tiled this fall)*
and at this plowing, no dead-furrows (except three short
ones tilled nearly full) will be left to encourage surf ace- wash,
and there will be no surface-wash. A plan of the drainage
of this field will be given in one of the chapters on " How to
Drain/'

CHAPTER VI.
When to Drain.

This will be discussed, first, with reference to funds and
financial policy; i.e., When can we afford to drain? Sec-
ond, with reference to economy; /. e., What times of year
can we drain best and most cheaply ?

First, then, When can we afford to drain V I answer, We
CUR not afford not to drain if we have land that we need for
tillage and rotation, and which is naturally unfit for it, but
which can be fitted for it by tile drainage. Shall we wait
till we are out of debt and have money to tile it, or shall we
tile it in order to get out of debt V The latter, as a rule. If
you are buying a clayey farm, buy a smaller one and spend
the rest of the purchase money (or debt for purchase) in ju-
diciously tiling all needed for present rotation, and increase
the drained area with increasing prosperity. If you already
own a clayey farm, sell part of it if you can (as I have lately
done 11 acres), and put the money received for it into tiling
some of that not sold (as I have just done). I practice what
I preach. If necessary, even run in debt cautiously, and as
little as possible, in order to tile, and then farm it your very
best to pay the debt. This I did while still pretty heavily in

72 TILE DRAINAGE.

debt (mortgage too) for the purchase price of my farm ; and
I doubt whether I could have got out of debt without thus
draining- as a basis for wheat, orchard, clover, and the best
tillage of the land and use of the manure from dairy and
teams. It helped me to profitable crops of wheat regularly
on all land tiled and properly manured or fertilized, and it
made the manures and fertilizers go twice as far (into the
soil and crops), because it kept them from going half as far
(off from the farm in surface wash). This drainage helped
me to get profitable crops of wheat and clover regularly, and
over constantly increasing areas, instead of occasionally and
over small areas heavily manured and surface drained by
deep dead-furrows between high, narrow lands as before. It
was, I think,rthe one thing that paid best on my clayey
farm, and was the very foundation for the successful tillage
and improvement of a soil which is naturally unproductive
and even infertile, until it has become one of great produc-
tiveness for all crops. Some of these facts in regard to the
rewards of tiling on my own land I have already given.
And I repeat my belief, that the clayey soils of the Western
Reserve, naturally rather infertile except for grass, and
naturally irresponsive to tillage, can be made to be really
paying farms financially, only by the thorough tile drainage
of considerable portions of their area and their careful culti-
vation in connection with dairying or other keeping of good
live stock.

But this does not imply that the work should all be done
in one year or even five, or be done by expensive hired labor.
A few acres, even one or two, can be tiled each year when
other work is light, and when the tiling can be done by the
owner himself with the regular farm force.

THE SEASON OF THE YEAR TO TILE.

By November 15th or 20th the usual" fall work" of the
farm should be done up. Then if the system of drainage is
properly planned arid laid out, the work of drainage can go

TILE DRAINAGE. 78

on all winter, except a few severe days, in latitude 37 to 41°.
The winter care of farm stock morning and night will be
about all that need interfere with the ditching,

After the fall rains have soaked the earth, but not made it
too soft, say about October 1st or 15th, the general location
of the mains and laterals should be carefully determined by
spirit-level, if the eye and the remembrance of past wet times
are not enough ; and the exact location be measured off with
tape-line, and indicated by tall stakes, and a deep furrow be
plowed with a strong team just where each drain is to be,
shading deeper through short knolls, and shallower through
each depression, so as to approximate a true grade. A
month or so of heavy fall rains will cut and fill in the bot-
tom of these furrows, giving still more nearly a true grade.
Then, just before the hand-digging and tile-laying begin, the
latter p irt of November, plow a second furrow in the bot-
tom of each, trying hard to improve the grade as indicated
by the cutting and filling of the earth by the rains. My sys-
tem for in arly three miles of drains, draining about fifteen
acres three rods apart, was thus laid out the first week in
October, 1890. The second furrows were plowed the tlrrd
week in November. A day and a half with man and team
laid them out and plowed both furrows, making the drains
some 8 inches dee]). It would have cost some $50 to do this
with line and spade, and the grading would not have been so
good.

The advantage, however, in thus "taking time by the
forelock" is not merely the saving in hand-digging, but the
fact that we thus have the full preparation for winter ditch-
ing made in two days in fall. The loose earth in the bottom
of the furrows, and the snow that blows into and lodges in
them d.uring even the short flurries of snow, keep the ground
from fi-cczhuj too hard to dig all winter long. From Nov.
18 to Dec. 22, last fall there were only two days when we
could not dig with comfort, and very few days the rest of
the winter and spring up to April first. This utilizes the

74 TILE DRAINAGE.

winter labor of the regular farm force, and makes the actual
cash outlay to the average farmer little more than the bare
cost* of tiles This answers the question as to when we can
dig most economically.

Details of this winter work will be given in the succeed-
ing chapters on "How to Drain,"' and estimates will be
given of the actual cost of the work.

CHAPTER VII.

How to Drain ; The Tiles.

Not only have tiles superseded all other kinds of material
for drains, but round tiles, without collars or joints, have
virtually sunerseded all other shapes of tiles, such as the
horseshoe tiles, the sole tiles, the socket or collar tiles, the
oval tiles, etc. Cylindrical ti]es are cheaper, stronger, bet-
ter in all respects than any other ; and for ordinary drainage
there is no need of sockets, joints, or collars. Hence we de-
scribe and refer to none but the cylindrical tiles. They may
be octagonal outside, without damage, and that form is
slightly more convenient in handling, shipping, and laying,
because they lie still better, and do not roll so much in piling
in car or wagon. But this is not important. Buy the fully
cylindrical or the octagonal outside and cylindrical inside, as
may be cheapest and most covenient. Buy the sort that is
made nearest and costs least, if equally good otherwise.

MATERIAL AND HARDNESS OF THE TILES.

Tiles are made of brick clay, and are then called " soft
tiles;1' also of potters' clay, and are then called "hard
tiles." The argument sometimes made for the soft tiles is
that they admit the water better. As this is an important
matter in drainage, and as I discussed it fully, with account
of experiments, in The County Gentleman of April 23, 1891, I
will here quote the article entire, with full credit to that pa-

TILE DRAINAGE. 75

per. I can not state the matter more clearly than 1 did
there.

EXPERIMENTS WITH TILES.

\\JIKRE DOES WATER GET INTO DRAINS ? — ABSORPTION BY SOFT
TILES DISPROVED ; — VALUE OF HARD TILES.

Editors Country Gentleman:— Some six or eight years ago
Prof. N. W. Lord and I made some careful experiments with
tiles at the Ohio State University, which seemed to prove beyond
question that the water enters tile drains at the joints, and not
through the pores of the tiles. I think that I gave some account
of the experiments at the time in these columns. Since then I
have been in the habit of advising the use of hard tiles made of
potters' clay, if to be had at the same price, rather than of the
soft red tiles made of brick clay, on the ground of greater
probable durability, especially near the outlets.

Mr. C. G. Elliott, of Rittman, ()., a manufacturer of soft tiles,
lately criticised this advice, given by myself, in a western agri-
cultural paper, and said that soft tiles are better because porous,
admitting the soil water through their pores into the interior of
the drains, as the hard tiles confessedly will not. I therefore
gave in reply, briefly, my former experiments and certain new
ones made with his own tiles sent me by him as fair samples.
They were excellent soft or brick-clay tiles. As I have formerly
written to some extent in these columns on drainage, I will now
report my recent experiments and conclusions.

First, I took a four-inch tile, medium burned, and set it on
end in a deep pail in plaster-of- Paris mortar, and let the plaster
harden, inside and outside of the tile. This completely closed
the bottom of the tile. I then filled the tile full of water. The
water sank perceptibly in the tile with a sort of hissing sound,
and the small air-bubbles came to the surface as the pores of the
tile greedily drank in the water. In eighty minutes it had sunk
two inches, but no water had gone through. I filled it again and
left it nine hours. It had then sunk half an inch, but no water
had gone through. I filled it again and it sank no more. Appar-
ently the same capillary attraction that drank the water into the
pores kept it in them, preventing its escape.*

I reversed the experiment with the same tile, still soaked —
emptying the water out of the tile and filling the pail all around
the empty tile. No 'water came tlirough, and none was absorbed,
as the tile was saturated already. I then remembered that water-
is said to filter through the brick partition of a cistern. The
thought suggested itself, that perhaps the water first got through
the cracks between the bricks and the mortar, and then with

* The reason of tins is explained in Chapter II. of this little book.—
W. I. C.

76 TILE DRAINAGE.

water on both sides it might possibly go through the brick on
that principle of chemical physics known as osmose (endosmose
and exosmose), by which two liquids on different sides of a blad-
der or membrane partition mix through the membrane, which is
impervious to either alone ! Or, if not on this principle, I thought
perhaps the water on both sides of the tile might relieve the
retentive force of the capillary attraction and so let the water
through, while, owing to the greater height on one side, the force
of gravity might push it through. The theory seemed all right
to explain the alleged facts about cistern filters, but it wouldn't
work on the tile. I filled the tile full and the pail half full, but
not a drop would go through, influenced either by gravity, capil-
lary attraction, or the molecular attraction called osmose. Not
the fraction of a teaspoonful could I get to go through in some
twelve hours of time, under all the different circumstances. And
I may add that, in the former experiments together with Prof.
Lord,' we let the water stand for days in a rather damp basement,
and not a drop came through. But in a dry wind that evapo-
rated the dampness from the moist surface of the tile, the capillary
attraction would supply the place of the moisture thus evaporated.

Now, the tiles experimented 'with in both these cases were sim-
ply medium-burnt brick-clay tiles. But if the land is not drained
until the water goes through the walls of the tiles (except in case
of flaws or " pin-holes"), it will never be drained ; for a tile, so
porous that its walls would suck in one-fifth of its interior con-
tents, was so impervious that it would not let the decimal of a
teaspoonful pass through in twelve hours.

I next addressed myself to ascertaining about how fast the
water can ge't in at the joints. I set another four-inch tile on
end on the one that was closed at the bottom, and was full and
saturated ; and I held it firmly down while my man filled it by
turning in water rapidly from a full pail ; and when the tile was
even full he cried k* Now ! " and my son and I timed it until it
had all run out at the joint— just five seconds — eight gallons per
minute ! But Gisborne, one of the earliest and best authorities,
figures that, with laterals 36 feet apart, the drains would remove
an inch of rainfall in 13 hours if each tile-junction will admit
two-thirds of a tablespoonful per minute ! And our tile admitted
(or let out) eight gallons per minute, under a pressure varying
from one foot perpendicular of water down to nothing — several
hundred times as fast as need be.

I have written pretty fully, in hopes of exploding the old idea
that the water soaks through the tiles. Makers of soft tiles seem
still to believe it, and some buyers too. Waring and other author-
ities on drainage state the case correctly. Waring says (•' Drain-
ing for Profit and Health, " p. 77) : tfc They " — that is, brick-clay
tiles—" are porous to the extent of absorbing a certain amount of
water, but their porosity has nothing to do with their use for
drainage. For this purpose they might as well be of glass. The
water enters them, not through their walls, but at their joints,

TILE DRAINAGE. 77

which can not be made so tight that they will not admit the very
small amount that will need to enter at each space."

Of the fifteen miles of tile drains on my little farm, nearly half
are hard potter-clay tiles, most of them glazed, and about as hard
as a jug or earthen crock. They can not and do not crumble or
flake with the frost, even at the outlets, where they are constant-
ly freezing and thawing while wet : but the brick-clay tiles at
the outlets flake and shell to pieces with the frost. The glazed
potter-clay tiles drain the land exactly as well as the porous
ones, so far as I can see, for both sorts work perfectly. I have
sometimes had the whole bottom course of piles of brick-clay
tiles, lying directly on the ground, shell all to pieces in a single
winter with our frequent rains and quick freezes and thaws.
And so I prefer the hard tiles if they can be had at about the
same price. As they are stronger, and burned harder, they can
be made thinner and lighter than the brick tiles, and hence cost
less for freight and handling. I have just weighed some with
the following results :

3-inch, soft, 2 Ibs. 13 oz. ; hard, 2 Ibs. 8 oz.
3-inch, soft, 5 Ibs. 13 oz.; hard, 4 Ibs. 2 oz.
4-inch, soft, 7 Ibs. 6 oz. ; hard, 6 Ibs. 8 oz.

There is less difference in weight than in size, as the soft ones
are lighter in specific gravity ; and there is less difference in
weight than I supposed until T tested them; also less in propor-
tion in the two-inch ones.

Still, I think the brick-clay tiles will endure for centuries, ex-
cept at the outlets, if laid below frost, and hard burned. Each
one should show clear red color, and give a clear metallic ring
when struck with a hammer, or be rejected.

W. I. CHAMBERLAIN.

In brief, my advice is, use hard tiles if you can get them at
about the same price as the soft or brick-clay ones. If not,
then use the latter, but see that they are well burned, and
use the potter-clay, or hard tiles, near all outlets, and for a
rod or two back from all outlets. And whichever sort you
use, do not delude yourself with the belief that the water
enters the drains through the pores of the tiles. It enters at
the joints. Sheep will not jump a high fence when a gate
stands wide open. Also insist on buying with the tiles a suffi-
cient number of UT joints" or " Y joints," or, at least, of
tiles with holes cut for joints wherever the water enters the
main drain from the laterals.

Fig. 20, page 80, which illustrates many points to be

78 TILE DRAINAGE.

brought out in the next chapter, shows two T joints and one
Y joint near the front end of the stone boat, as well as round
and octagonal tiles, and one socket tile, or sewer-pipe.

CHAPTER VIII.

How to Drain ; The Tools ; Hand Tools or
Machine Tools?

In these days of machinery shall we dig by hand, by horse
power, or by steam? After much investigation I am of the
clear opinion that the average farmer, on bowlder'clay, will
dig and till most cheaply by hand, except the plowing of top
furrows, as described in 'Chapter VI., and the filling by
team. While I was Secretary of the Ohio State Board of
Agriculture, a field trial of steam and horse power ditch-
ing-machines was held on the new State Fairgrounds at
Columbus, and later another was held in Marion, Ohio, both
under my direction as Secretary. At the two trials, two
steam-machines and four or five horse-power ones, tried
their powers, and competed for the prizes. At Columbus
the ground (common "glacial drift," or " bowlder clay")
was so stony that none of the machines did profitable work.
At Marion it was far lens stony, and one horse - power
machine, the u Rennie:" of Toronto, Canada, and one steam-
power machine, the "Plumb," from Illinois, did excellent
and fairly paying work, provided a large job of it were to be
done at a time of year when they could be operated. Either
of them, and one or two others of which I know, would pay
on very large jobs in practically stoneless soil. But none of
them will probably pay for the average farmer on bowlder
clay, and for the following reasons:

First, the ground is usually too stony. Of the three miles
I dug the past winter on my own farm, scarcely a single
length of ten rods consecutively could have been dug profit-

THLE DRAINAGE. 79

ably by any machine I have yet seen, and I have seen nearly
all of any reputation. Stones occurred under ground every-
where, from the size of one's fist up to the size of a bushel
basket or even a haycock. To the hand-digger they are not
a very great hindrance. Those that weigh from fifty to a
hundred pounds or so can be removed without much delay.
Where they weigh several hundred pounds, or even several
tons, one can quite readily find their boundaries and curve
the ditch gradually around them. For example, Fig. 20
shows a ditch dug by hand (except top course with plow) 80
inches deep, and with the tiles laid, but not covered. A
great bowlder, probably weighing a ton or more, was struck,
two feet under ground. When struck with a crowbar the
sound revealed its size to an -expert ear — too big to be
moved, but with the ditch near one side of it. So I just
curved the bottom of the ditch out of line about one foot,
cutting under the side of the bank and making a total curve
some 12 feet long. The water will flow perfectly, and it
hindered us so little that we got the usual amount done that
day. In fact, we often struck similar ones, botli larger and
smaller, below the surface, and often had to curve the ditcli
or spend dollars in removing a great bowlder, only to leave a
large deep hole in the bottom of the ditch filled with soft
mud, and likely to cause a "sag" in the drain. But such
stones, in such numbers as they usually cccur on bowlder clays
that wed drainayr, make machine digging at any time of the
year unprofitable. Every stone makes a long stoppage of
four horses and two men, and requires hand work to remove
or dig around it.

S?cfmd, the machines can not work well on wet ground or
in winter, when the top is either muddy or frozen ; but that
is just the time when labor is cheapest, when the ground
digs easiest, and when the soil water serves to grade the
bottom of the ditch.

It will not, at the present stage of invention, pay the av-
erage farmer, I think, to own a machine as he does a mower

TILE DBA IN AGE. SI

or twine-binder. If any one who owns one will dig for you
by the rod and board himself, and furnish hand work to han-
dle the bowlders that he strikes, and do it cheaper, really, than
yon can do the work yourself in winter when you would not
be earning much otherwise— why, then hire him on a clearly
understood contract.

THE HAND TOOLS.

First, there is the ditching-spade, for lifting the top course
below the furrow. It is shown at the extreme right of Fig.
20, rear end of stoneboat, and in Fig. 20|, No. 7. The blade
is 16x6 inches, square bottom, blade thin, light, and sharp,
but curved cylindrically to strengthen it. It must be thin
to cut well and sharpen itself ; and liyht, to save lifting
unnecessary weight with every spadeful. The handle is
slightly bent, and lias a T cross at the top. The kind I use
are marked u Patent Ditching-spade, Antrim 2,"' and weigh
4 Ibs. '2 o/. I bought m ne of the George Worthington Co.,
Cleveland, ().

Second, the bolto-titing-xpadt', light and sharp, and curved
like the other, 16x4 inches, but with cutting edge rounding,
so as to leave a hollow groove a little over four inches wide
in the bottom of the ditch for the tiles to lie in. This spade
is seen in Fig. 20, next to the one first .described, at the ex-
treme right, and also in Fig. 204-, No. 6.

Third, the scoop for cleaning out the crumbs of eaith left by
the spade in the bottom of the tii>.t course. The blade is
Mat, and curved slightly, lengthwise (that is, across its
length), so as to save friction in shoving it under the loose
earth. It has a long handle, set at such an angle that the
workman's back need not be much bent in using it. It is
seen near the right of Fig. 20, its blade lying flat on the
stoneboat, and its handle slanting up behind the handles of
the two spades, ar.d also in Fig. 20i, No. 4.

Fourth, the b( Wviing-scoc.p. This is shown in Tig. 20, a little
to the left of the other, and in the same position, and in Fig.
L'04, No. 1. It is a adouble-ender,"' made of a half-cylinder of

FTG. 201.

TILE DRAINAGE. 83

rather thin sheet steel, rounded and sharp at both ends, and
hung near the middle by a ratchet (or clamp) arrangement that
permits it to be adjusted to any angle. They are made of dif-
ferent sizes. I use a two-inch one (single-ended and not
adjustable), and a four-inch one seen in the figure. The two-
inch one is seen in the hands of the workman who stands in
the ditch, Fig. 20, and is best for cutting a true groove for
two-inch tiles after the other lias cleaned out the crumbs,
and left a wider-grooved bottom. The position of the work-
man in using the scoop is best shown in Fig. 26, page 94.

Fifth, the span-level, for determining grade. Mine is a
home-made affair — simply a triangle, or Greek delta, Hi A
feet on each side, made of two-inch pine or poplar, plain —
battens, and has a spirit-level screwed accurately to the
cross-batten that makes a capital letter A of the triangle.
Care must be taken that the spirit-level be exactly parallel
to the ba^e of the triangle. For convenience in using, a
short inch strip is tacked to each end of the bottom edge of
the base. The level is graduated to show a grade of one,
two, and three inches to the rod. Its use will be described
later. It is seen in Fig. 20, standing on the stoneboat in the
background, or, rather, back of the other tools.

Sixth, the tile-hook. It is seen in Fig. 20, in the hands of
the first workman, who has a tile on it, which he is just in
the act of laying in position in the ditch. It saves getting
down into the. ditch. But often 1 prefer to lay by hand,
when the ditch is not too "nasty," standing on each tile as
laid, and pressing it firmly into place.

Seventh, the fiUiny-Jwolc. It is seen leaning against the
span-level, in Fig. 20; also in Fig. 20i, No. 8. Its tines are
a foot long, and are flat, about I inch wide, and very strong.
Mine is made by bending the shank of a potato-digging fork
to a slightly acute angle, and setting it in a strong handle.
You strike it with a sharp blow into the earth on the side of
the ditch, and pull in 25 to 75 pounds at a time, according to
how strong you feel. It is by far the best filling tool I know

84 TILE DKAINAGE.

of, where one must fill by hand, as on turf or wheat, or in
freezing weather. I also use the common potato-digging
fork, seen at the right of Fig 20, behind the spades and scoop;
also a shovel and hoe, and a strong garden-rake for cleaning
up the crumbs on wheat, or on turf that is not to be plowed.
These, I think, are all the tools really needed for hand-digging
and for laying tiles, except the pick and crowbar for remov-
ing stones and loosening exceedingly solid gravel. Instru-
ments for laying out the drains will be mentioned in con-
nection with that work.

CHAPTER IX.

How to Drain ; The Manipulations ; Locating
the Drains.

This has been described in part in Chapter VI. If there
is plenty of fall, and the depressions show plainly where the
main drains should be, the system may be laid out by the
eye, with measuring-tape and stakes. If not, then a careful
observation should be made in very wet weather (the fall and
winter preceding), to locate the low parts, where the water
gathers and flowrs off, and the direction the water takes on
the more level parts. If the ground is very level you had
better employ a really expert drainage engineer, or a civil
engineer who understands tile drainage, to lay off the ground
and set grade stakes, and make a diagram on paper. A
diagram, or map, is an excellent thing to have at any rate.
It is a permanent record of the location of drains. It helps
one to find readily the main drains, if, at some future time,
he wishes to find them to introduce new laterals. In my
own case I have often desired to do this during the last 20
years, as some of my mains were laid even longer ago than
that, and the laterals not all laid, in some cases, until many
years later. The mains are thus easily found, and in every

TILE DRAINAGE. 85

case have been found where the map" indicated, and to be as
clean inside as it' just washed out and rinsed out. That was
just what was done at the last wet time preceding.

THE I)I(i(;lN(i.

Where shall we begin to dig and lay V At the outlet, as a
rule. You must begin there it' your work is to go on late in
the fall, or all winter, or very early in the spring ; that is,
during freezing and thawing weather. You must dig and
lay and fill, as you go. Sometimes the earth thrown out will
begin to freeze in an hour or two enough to obstruct the till-
ing, and, if left over night, it will often freeze so solid that
it can not be filled in for days or even weeks. The sides of
the ditch, too, will freeze if the ditch is left open long in
winter; and when it thaws they will cave in or slump in.
Still further, the earth fills in far more easily immediately
after it is thrown out, and while it remains in spadefuls,
than if left to settle together, especially if rain falls on it
and soaks it into mud.

My plan for winter tiling (and it is just as good for other
seasons if all is to be done by hand) is to lay and cover one
entire main drain first, seeing to it that the outlet or outfall
is good. Then begin digging at the lower end of the lower
lateral, and dig right down to the main and take up one
straight tile and insert a T or Y joint as the case may re-
quire. Of course, if the whole system is laid out with the
plow iii the fall, then the exact position of each lateral is
fixed and clearly seen, and the T or Y joint may be laid at
the time the ma;n is laid, and its open part stopped with a
Hat stone. Either way will do. In the days when we could
get no joints or junctions, T or Y, nor even get tiles with
holes for lateral junctions cut in them before baking, we had
to peck a hole in a tile, or at the junction of two tiles, with
a sharp-pointed hammer, and that had to be done, or at least
could be best done, when the main was first laid ; and so I
used to lay a few lengths of each , lateral, as I came to each

86 TILE DRAINAGE.

in laying the main, and stop up the end of the lateral with a
wad of straw until we began on each again. But with joints
for laterals ready made, the first way is much the easiest.
In either way the lateral furrow should be dammed up and
the water turned off a few feet above where the lateral
enters the main, so that surface-water will not flood down
the furrow and wash out or choke up the main before the
lateral is laid.

THE DIGGING.

" Any fool can dig V" No, it takes skill, won only by
thought and practice, to dig rapidly and well, and not make
hard work of it. I have had many men stronger than I, and
with more power of endurance ; but only one, I think, who
could dig more rods of ditch in a day than I, and leave a
true grade in the bottom. He was an expert ditcher who
had followed the work as a business for years, and had
splendid muscle, great endurance, and a true eye and hand.

DON'T BURY THE SPADE.

The first point in rapid, e isy ditching, is to keep one side-
edge of the spade out of the earth, in sight, each spadeful.
Fig. 21 shows how a non-expert will bury both edges of the
spade at gh, ij, kl, mn, and have harder work thereby, both
in sinking the spade and in breaking off the slice of earth.

Fig. 22.— Expert dig-g'ing-. See
printed page herewith.

Fig. yl. -Non-exp
See printed page herewith.

TILE DKAINAGK. 87

Fig. 22 shows how an expert will sink his spade ; a 6, cd, ef,
being the curves cut by the spade, and the edge a being
" out " the first cut, and tlie edge c being out the second cut,
and so on. Thus held, the spade sinks more easily, and the
fmp. edge of the spadeful breaks off true and easily.

SINKING THE SPADE.

This is done by a succession of quick "shoves "or thrusts
with the foot, throwing one's whole weight upon the spade
with a quick impulse, and working the handle slightly back
and forth in sympathy with the efforts of the foot. It will
take from two or three to six or eight "shoves," to send a
sixteen-inch spade "home," the number varying with the
hardness or stoniness of the cl-iy and the skill and muscle of
the digger. The bast way to' get this motion is to watch a
real expert and get him to teach you. I almost never use a
pick or mattock. A good ditching spade well handled will
dig almost any tiling but the stoniest clayey gravel faster
alone than with the help (?) of the pick, by working ((round
the stones.

PRESERVING THE (IKADE.

This is very important. I would rather dig and grade the
bottom course complete than simply to grade an uneven
" billowy " bottom dug by a careless, non-expert digger. If
the proper grade is established at the bottom of the plowed
furrows, as described, an expert will give exactly the same
grade in the bottom of each hand-dug course, or "lift,*'
simply by holding his spade, in digging, always at the same
<>m//' and thrusting it to the same depth, usually full depth.
This, too, is a matter of practice, and requires skill to do it
well. A green hand will always "slnde out "where the
ground is very hard, and ''shade in" where it is soft; and
he will unconsciously vary the angle at which he holds the
spade. But the more nearly perpendicular it is held, the
greater perpendicular or actual depth it will make when
sunk full length. "Exactly perpendicular, a sixteen-inch

88 TILE DRAINAGE.

spade will, of course, make 16 inches of perpendicular depth.
Exactly horizontal, it will make no depth at all. Held at
u half pitch,7' that is, at an angle of 4o degrees, it will make
about Hi inches of perpendicular depth. As ordinarily held
by a good ditcher, at a slight angle from a perpendicular,
say 20 degrees, it will make about 14 inches. If the entire
ditch is to be 30 inches, I usually try to make fully 7 or 8
with the plow, and 13 or 14 with the first spade, and that
leaves only 8 or 9 inches for the second, or bottoming spade.
The subsoil at the bottom is far more compact and hard, and
it is better not to have too deep a course to dig. Great care
should be taken to keep the grade of this course exactly
right, so that, when you draw the double-ended crumb-
cleaner and groove-cutter through the few loose crumbs of
clay that are always left by the spade of even an expert,
you will leave a true groove ready for the tiles. When the
ground is very wet, or the atmosphere either moist or
frosty, in digging and cleaning the bottom couise I always
keep the crumb cleaner, or "bottorner," close at hand, and
clean out the bottom and "true up " the groove every 6 or
8 feet of digging, standing at the top of the bottom course,
and thus never getting into the bottom of the ditch. The
tiles, too, if the ditch is very muddy, are laid with the tile-
hook shown in the hands of the first workman in Fig. L().
This s-.ives one from getting very muddy.

THE FOOT-IKON FOR DIGGING.

One important little thing I forgot to describe among the
digging-tools, and that is the foot-iron—see Fig. 23. It is
made of plate iron or steel, about an eighth of an inch thick.
It is fitted to the bottom of the hollow of the boot, between
the heel and the ball of the foot. It is bent down behind
about f inch at right angles, to protect the boot-heel, and
bent up on a curve about an inch along each side to protect
the sides of the boot from wear against the handle and cor-
ners of the spade in digging. It is buckled over the instep

TILE DRAINAGE.

89

like a skate, and one strap passes around behind the heel,
and is riveted or sewed, on each side, to the strap that passes
over the instep. It should be fitted to the boot you expect

i. -Steel "foot-iron," for shoving- the spade (showing- outline of
boot-foot and leg1, and iron buckled on for work.

to wear in ditching, by a skillful blacksmith and harness-
maker, and should fit just right, both the iron and the straps.
It should buckle on the outside of the foot, so that the buckle
and loop shall not be in the way of the spade-handle. It is
almost an absolute necessity with a rubber boot ; and even a
heavy leather sole is soon worn out without it, and almost
immediately softens up so that it is spongy and not hard as
it should be to thrust the spade most effectively. You can
send the spade "home" far more quickly and easily with
the ditching-iron, and it tires the foot less, and saves the

90 TILE DRAttfAGE.

boot. It is unbuckled, removed, and cleaned each night
and noon. They should be kept ready made and of various
sizes at hardware stores among ditching tools, but they are
not.

PLACING THE EARTH IN DIGGING.

An expert will place the earth in a high, narrow ridge,'
very dose to the edge of the ditch. Thus left it takes very little
time or strength to fill it in. if it is filled almost as soon as
dug.

THE MOTION IN THROWING OUT EARTH.

If your spade is held nearly vertical in digging, and the
earth is either quite moist, so as to slip on the spade, or so
dry as to crumble into small lumps, a. part or 'the whole
of the spadeful is inclined to escape from the smooth spade
and remain in the ditch. A green hand will leave three or
four times as much loose earth in the bottom of each " lift,"
or coursers an expert digger will. The expert first sinks his
spade to the true grade, keeping one side -edge out as de-
scribed, then pushes his spade-handle slightly forward to
loosen the cut at the top, and then pries back with the
handle, lifting at the same time with the lower hang,, and, as
soon as the side-edge and the bottom of the spadeful are
loosened, gives the whole a swing, or curved motion, outward
and upward, and lands the whole of it, spade on top, close to
the edge of the ditch ; and the spade is sinking for the next
spadeful in a moment. The various motions described follow
each other so rapidly that you can hardly distinguish them.
The point is, that the spade is swung with just such speed and
motion, and in such a curve, that the centrifugal force holds
the earth against the spade-blade and prevents its either
slipping or crumbling off. The speed and the curve must be
regulated according to the tendency of the earth to slip or
crumble. If it sticks to the spade tightly you can lift it as
you choose. If very slippery or crumby you must give quite
a quick swing, and keep it up until you land it. I remember
that, when I first learned, as a child, to swing half a pailful

TILE I) HA IX AGE.

91

of milk over my head, bottom side up, aided by centrifugal
force, 1 once unconsciously stopped, with pail in mid-air, to
explain to admiring village friends just how the thing was
done, and the milk descended ingloriously upon my foolish
head ! Just so, by not getting the right motion or " turn of
the wrist," the green or inatten-
tive hand lands much of his loose
earth in the bottom of the ditch.
To dig a tile drain rapidly, easi-
ly, well, and with true grade, is a
trade of skill, and takes as much
practice and knack as to learn
how to use plane, saw, hammer,
and chisel deftly and well. No,
" any fool " can not dig tile
drains and lay tiles well.

THE TIIKEE - TINEI) l)ITCIIIN(i-
Sl'ADK.

In most of the prairie soils that
require or need tiling, the oppo-
site tifa slipping or crumbling
takes place. The black, mucky
earth is intensely sticky. It slices
easily, being soft when moist,
and being practically stoneless ;
but it sticks all over the spade,
especially to its back, and will
not tu let go.1' You can't dump
your spadeful clean, and must
clean the spade every few spade-
fuls with trowel or large knife be-
fore it will slice the mucky earth
again. Hence there has been in-
vented, and, of course, patented, ditching.*""
what we may call the three-tined sticky and innp.ky soils.

92 TILE DRAINAGE.

ditching-spade. It is shown in Fig. 24, and consists of the
ordinary spade-handle, but, instead of a full spade-blade,
three strong, straight, steel tines extend down some IB in..
and are smoothly riveted to a spade-edge; i. c., a cutting edge
of about five or six inches wide and two inches deep. This
slices the mucky earth nicely, while the latter can not stick to
the narrow, square tapering tines. But these in turn help
lift out the slice of earth. Such tined ditching-spades are
found in most of the hardware stores of the prairie States. I
looked in all the hardware stores of Cleveland, O., in vain to
find one to try in my clay subsoil. It is so stony, and apt to
crumble, that 1 presume the regular ditching-spade will work
best here. I doubt whether the tined spade would take such
dirt out clean enough; but I should have liked to try one,
and wish now that I had sent west for one by express. But
I did not, and hence it is simply my opinion that, on the
average, in our clayey subsoils, the regul-ir ditching-spade
will do the best and cleanest work. Still, in some of our
clays at a certain stage of dampness the earth sticks to the
back of the spa'de quite badly, and so I usually carry an old_
table-knife in the hip-pocket or side leg-pocket of jAy over-
alls. It is the best and quickest thing to clean tW spade
with, and, thus carried, it is always ready for use.

ESTABLISHING CLOSE GRADES.

When there is an abundance of fall, as on most of our
rolling clayey farms, a good hand and eye will faep the
grade, when once established by the plow and flood-water,
near the surface as described. But where the grade is pretty
close, and you have only an inch or so to the hundred feet, it
is best, as before stated, to get a careful civil or drainage
engineer to establish the grade and set exact stakes as often
as ea?,h hundred feet, each marked with the exact depth of
the ditch at that point. Then you can yourself set sighting-
rods, or boning-rods, as they are sometimes called; that is, set
a stake about four feet high, about a foot from each edge of

TILE DRAINAGE. 98

the proposed ditch, at each hundred -foot engineer's stake,
and tack a lath or batten exactly le>vel across the ditch to the
top of these stakes, so that the top of each lath, or sight ing- rod,
shall be exactly 66 inches (5| feet), for example, above where
the bottom of the ditch must be at that point, as shown by
the engineer's figures. Then have a u sighting-stick," or
batten witli cross-stick at hand, itself also just 66 inches long
(a convenient length for sighting over for the average man),
and, as you dig your bottom course, occasionally set the.
sighting-stick as nearly plumb as you can (this is important) in
the bottom of the ditch as there dug, and hold it plumb with
one hand, and sight over it, thus held, to the next two or
three sighting-rods down or up the ditch. If the top of your
sighting-stick is in exact line with the sighting-rods, your
ditch at tha^ point is at the right depth. If it is not so, then
make it so. Or, you may use your body as a sighting-stick,

"sigh ting stick" to

Fig. 25. — Position of workman sighting1 over the "sightL.e, ,„

the " sighting-rods." Here he stands in the ditch (one side represented
as removed at that point), and sights along- the ditch already dug.

setting your sighting-rods the exact height of your eye as you
stand erect, and simply standing erect in the bottom of the
ditch each time you sight for grade. Fig. 25 gives the sight-

94

TILE DRAINAGE.

ing-rods and stakes, and the position of the workman in
using the sighting- stick. *

CUTTING THE GROOVES FOR THE TILES.

The position of the workman in doing the work is shown in
Fig. 20 (page 80), the middle workman there being shown at
that work. But it is shown more accurately in Fig. 26, which

Fig. 26.— Position of workman using- the "bottoming- - scoop" or
" g-roove-cutter." Here he stands in the ditch, one side removed.

shows simply one plumb side of the ditch and a workman
using the groove-scoop. My own custom is to remove the
crumbs with the double-ended four-inch scoop, and then cut
the groove for two or three inch tiles with a scoop of exactly
the right size, so that the tiles (two or three inch laterals)
shall lie snugly in the groove, unable to roll, and with no
chance for water to flow under the tiles and gully the bottom
out. In fall and winter the ! soil- water will commonly ooze
into the groove enough to show whether there are any de-
pressions in it, and whether the grade is right. There should
not be any depressions. If there are any, then, after the tiles
are^aid, sediment may slowly lodge in them and fill up the
tilefB>artly or entirely. If there is not enough soil-water to

TILE DBAINAGE. 95

show grade, then the span-level should be carefully applied
to each eight feet of the groove where there is any possible doubt;
or, water may even be brought in small quantities and poured
into a stretch of the groove before the tiles are laid. If it
runs off properly then, it will do so ever afterward. I think
you feel a little more certain you are right when the groove is
actually tested with water than with either the sighting-rods
or span-level, or both. But it saves time to use these first,
and finally use the water.

LAYING THE TILES.

Where the sides, bottom, and top of the ditch are not too
very muddy I prefer to stand in the ditch and lay each tile by
hand, making sure that it will not roll or rock, forcing it up
close to those already laid, with a slight backward swing of
the boot-heel, and with your whole weight pressing each tile
firmly into its groove and final resting-place. If the ditch is
very muddy, the tile-hook (Fig. 20) may be used. This work
should last for centuries if well done. It will not work well
two years if badly done. It pays to do it well. Doctors are
(slanderously?) said to "bury their worst mistakes." The
owner of a farm can not afford to do the same in tile draining.

COVERING THE TILES.

I usually (unless I have a real expert working for me)
lay the tiles myself, and have laid most of the 80,000 on
my farm. I also prefer to fill the first course of earth myself,
using fine damp clay (not big chunks), even if I have to slice
down the (lain]) ditch-sides to get such clay. I thus fill in
about six inches and tramp it hard^with the feet. This forces
the water to seek the tiles through the natural pores of the
undug sides of the ditch, and to enter at the sides and bottom,
instead of washing large holes down through the loose soil,
and filling up the drains. After the bottom course is thus
filled and tramped, the rest may be filled in by man or team,
and heaped up along the line, and trusted to settle with the
rains of winter and spring, and rolled down with ajfaeavy

96 • TILE DRAINAGE.

£~

iron roller in the spring, or plowed and harrowed with the

rest of the field if that is done.

THE UPPER ENDS OF LATERALS.

These should each be stopped up with a small flat stone,
completely shutting out the dirt and the undue entrance of
water. Water should enter there just as much as at other
joints, and no more — that is, enter at the narrow crack.

PROTECTING THE OUTLETS.

It is well, where water or land vermin abound, to protect
the outlets from their entrance by strong galvanized-iron
screen work. The following poetic (?) squib illustrates the
importance, of such screens. It appeared in The Country
Gentleman, Jan. 22, 1880; and since that sedate periodical
countenanced it then, we may, perhaps, venture to reprint
it now. It was suggested by finding the bones of a rat
washed out at a tile outlet.

THE DOLEFUL TALE OF A RAT.

Once a rat, in a rain,

Ran into a drain,
And said: " It is perfectly clear, sir,

It may thunder and pour

Outside of the door,
But it never can storm in here, sir.

" I'm 4 as snug as a mouse '

In this fine dry house,
And fixed " just as nice as a pin,' sir;

For so tight is the wall,

And the ceiling and all.
That the water can never work in, sir.

" And the door is so small.

And so narrow the hall,
That there's not the least fear of the cat, sir:

And so round is it dug,

And so tidy and snug,
'Twas just made for the home of a rat, sir ! "

TILE DRAINAGE. 97

So on ran the rat

Through the " main drain,'* for that
Was so straight, and so airy and big, sir.

He could gallop or trot,

Or lie down or " what not,"
Or stand up and dance you jig, sir.

" Ho, ho ! " said the rat,
" Here's a smaller drain that
Was made for a bedroom, I know sir;
The door is quite small,
But I know how to crawl,
So into this bedroom I'll go, sir."

'Twas a pretty close fit,

But he squeezed into it,
And crept far along for to see, sir,

Whether, on as he went,

Along up the ascent,
Any bigger this bedroom would be, sir.

Then he lay down to dreams;

But the rain, as it seems,
Grew harder the longer he slept, sir,

And soaked through the " sile,"

And entered the tile,
And into his sleeping-room crept, sir.

•' Ho, ho ! " said the rat,
11 What is that— what is that?
The waters ?— the waters, they flow, sir !
I'll turn me about,
And ' skedaddle ' right out,
For sure it is high time to go, sir ! "

But, alas and alack !

He could neither go back
Nor forward, nor could he breathe there, sir.

For the waters they rose

Right over his nose,
Ami cut off Jiis supply of fresh air, sir !

(If the reason why

When the rat vyas dry
He could enter the tile, you ask, sir,

And could not turn about

When wet, nor back out,
.Hut was tight as the bung in a cask, sir—

98 TILE DRAINAGE.

Why, 'tis perfectly plain,

And not hard to explain:
For, you know — if you don't, then you ought 'er-

Though a thing is quite small.

It don't stay so at all
After soaking awhile in the water.}

So, alas and alack !

He could neither go back
Nor forward, nor stay, as I said, sir,

But was " laid out flat,"
"•As a drownded rat,"
In fact, he was — " mortuus est" sir.

Long after, 'twould seena,
Were borne down by the stream/
And found by the farmer, you see, sir,
Just the bones and all that
Of this ill-fated rat—
"As dead as a door-nail" could be, sir.

FABULA DOCET— TO KAT8 :

You may learn from the fate

Of your mis'able mate
To keep out of the mouth of the drain, sirs:

For though it seems dry,

There are good reasons why
You had better stay out in the rain, sirs!

FABULA DOCET — TO FAHMKKS:

At the mouth of your tile

It has happened ere while
Such " varmints " have ventured to go, sirs;

But it's not at all hard

The outlet to guard,
With a grating they can not go through, sirs!

W. I. C.

French says, page 188 of "Farm Drainage," "They (the
vermin after entering at the outlet) persevere upward and
onward till they come, in more senses than one, to an un-
timely end. Perhaps, stuck fast in a small pipe tile, they die
a nightmare death; or, perhaps, overtaken by a shower, of
the effect of which, in their ignorance of the scientific princi-
ples of drainage they had no conception, they are drowned
before they have time for deliverance from the strait in

TILE DRAINAGE. <)<J

which they find themselves, and so are left, as the poet strik-
ingly expresses it, 4 to lie in cold obstruction and to rot.' "
Then he speaks of the " slimy things that creep with legs."
and which " seem to imagine that drains are constructed for
their special accommodation." When they die in the drains
they are affected as " sighing and grief" affected Falstaff —
it " blows them up like a bladder," and, like Samson, " they
do more mischief in their death than in all their life togeth-
er. They swell up and stop the water entirely, or partially
dam it, so that the effect of the work is impaired."

kt To prevent injuries from this source there should be at
every outlet a grating or screen of cast iron or of copper wire,
to prevent the intrusion of vermin." The simplest way is to
cut a square piece of heavy gal vani zed-iron screen or win-
dow grating, a little larger than the diameter of the tile at
the outlet you wish to guard. Tack it firmly to two small
wooden stakes, or wire it to iron ones, and drive one stake
down firmly on each side of the outlet, with the screen
pressed up tight against the tile. Then it can be removed
for cleaning if necessary, and replaced. It is also well to
have as few actual outlets as possible — gathering the various
laterals and sub-mains all into one great outlet, and guard-
ing that properly. The open ditch at each outlet is a source
of constant annoyance. Cattle tramp it ; frogs, crawfish,
and slimy things gather in it and seek entrance to the drain,
and the mud works in and obstructs the tiles unless it is
often cleaned away. The fewer outlets the better. My
largest outlet, ten-inch, discharges the water from over 25
acres of tiled land, and takes the flood- water from two ponds,
and these in turn take the flood-water from 40 acres or more
of untiled land. How this water is handled will be explained
in another chapter. The point now is, that this one outlet
takes the water collected in the two ponds, and, by some six
miles of laterals and sub-mains, there being not less than 65
separate laterals and 8 separate sub-mains all discharging
through this one outlet. And tins one outlet takes no more

100 TILE DKAINAGE.

expense to screen it and keep it in proper How, summer and
winter, and watch the open ditch into which it flows, than
each one of the laterals and sub-mains would require if each
had a separate outlet. Indeed, it requires less; for it has
such force and volume of discharge that it clears its own
way. A map in the next chapter illustrates this more fully.

CHAPTER X.
How to Drain ; Special Problems.

One problem is, how to handle large amounts of surface-
water coming from land that lies higher up along the water-
shed or slope. Such a problem presented itself in connection
with the thorough drainage of the lield of 36 acres shown in
Fig. 27. First, let us explain the handling of the surplus
water coming from some 40 acres of land, chiefly pasture and
meadow, and not tiled, and lying higher up than the lield
itself.

I had the two ponds, A and B, at the southwest side of the
lield (see Fig. 27). Beneath the dam of the larger is a two-
inch iron pipe with globe- valve for discharge full size of the
pipe. This discharges into a sewer-pipe catch-basin marked
E, which connects by a four-inch tile drain, and this in turn
discharges down the valley through the middle (six-inch)
main (see map). The valve is opened in high water. Also
the overflow from both ponds in high water enters the six-
inch main through the twenty-inch catch-basin in the catch-
pond on the southwest side of the field, and marked C. The
catch-basin is of twenty-inch sewer-pipe, and the six-inch
main enters it by a reversed " trap '' shown in Fig. 28.

EXPLANATION OF MAP, FIG. 27.

The single straight lines are two-inch lateral tile-drains,
and the double lines are main drains. Southeast of the

TILE DRAINAGE

101

.MAP OF " SPECIAL PROBLEM " ON 3<> ACRES.

Fig. 27.— Thorough drainage of 36 acres (besides fence-rows and head-
hinds), situated on the farm of W. I. Chamberlain. The curved and
crooked dotted lines are lines of equal elevation above the outlet,
14 contour lines." They are marked 5, 10, 15, etc.; that is, the number
of feet of rise or elevation above the outlet. The single straight lines
are 2-inch lateral drains; the double lines are main drains, A is an ice
and fish pond, and B a pond for watering stock. C is a "catch pond"
(usually dry) in which is the "catch-water" or "catch-basin" to take
the pond-water in f ivshets into the 6-inch main.

102

TILE DRAIN A(i K

three large diagonal mains, the laterals are 33 feet apart,
northwest of these mains they are 49i feet apart. The for-
mer were laid eleven years ago, and drained the land so rap-
idly and thoroughly that, last fall and winter, when I drained
the northwest part of the field I decided to put them 49i
feet (three rods) apart. Thus far they seem to be sufficient.
The rule of running the laterals straight down the slope
would make them cross all contour lines (the dotted curved

Fig. 28.— Sewer-pipe catch-basin, trap, 6-inch tiles, and section of dam
(D) of catch-water pond (shown at C, Fig. 27). When the water overflows
the two large ponds it rises in the catch-water pond until it overflows
the sewer-pipe at A, and passes off through the trap T, and through the
6 inch main B C, and finally out at the 10-inch outlet O, near the north-
east corner of the map, Fig. 27.

lines of equal elevation) <(t right angles. It will be seen that
they do so as nearly as is possible if we are to have a paral-
lel system, which is quite desirable, saving trouble and ex-
pense. Near the northeast side of the field a number of the
laterals deflect and run due north several rods so as to avoid
quite a knoll shown on the map. To run them straight
northwest through this would have required deep and expen-
sive digging.

A careful study of the " contour lines" and darts will
show just what course is taken in the tiles by all the surplus
water that falls on the entire field, and why the mains and

TILE DRAINAGE.

10;;

laterals were laid just where they are. The map will repay
careful study.

SPECIAL PROBLEMS AND QUESTIONS.

I next touch upon several inquiries, problems, and state-
ments that have come to me by mail.

From Sheboygan, Mich., came the following letter and
diagram which I answered in The National Stockman in sub-
stance as below. 1 quote writh due credit.

" I have a wet, boggy piece of land, too wet to pasture, which I
wish to drain into two or throe reservoirs. This diagram shows
the shape, slope, and features of the land, and my plan concern-
ing it. The darts show the slope. Could this piece be drained by
cutting one ditch toward the southeast along the dotted line A B
(see cut), another southwest as shown by the other dotted line

UEVEL. DRYISH LANB.

Fig. 29.— Problem submitted.

CD. or will it be necessary to cut other ditches running parallel
to the north and west ditches [I don't understand this], or to run
from A to S? Also how far apart, how deep, and what sized
tiles? Should they be laid close, and be mortared on top. or a
little way apart on top ? Should the ditch have a good pitch ? "

Now, this letter is too indefinite. The amount of fall is not
given, nor the reason why he wants to drain into reservoirs.
Assuming that he has reasons, that he can't get other (free)
outlet, and that these reservoirs have gravel bottoms, and that
they will dispose of the water from the bog so that it will not get
back into the tiles, 1 answer the queries as follows :

Such a bog. unless the soil is quite porous, would need drains 30
to 50 feet apart and r*,1* to 31., feet deep. As to pitch, get all that
the land will give you. If nearly a dead level, "shade up'' a
i rifle, say from IJJ... feet deep at the outlet, to 2% feet deep at the
upper end. As to size of tiles, I would use none less than three or
four inch in a k' bog." Lay the tiles as close as possible, and use

104 TILE DRAINAGE

no mortar. Simply coyer with clay, if possible, six inches deep,
and tramp well before filling the rest. If this is your first job of
draining you should get either a good drainage engineer or an
expert practical tile-ditcher to start you and show you how.
From your inadequate description I should say the land should
be laid out as below, in the rough sketch:

Fig. 30.— Solution suggested.

. This is as near as I can hit the case from the insul'licienl data
given above.

DRAINS WITH NO OPKX Ol'TLKTS.

This raises the general question of drains without open
outlets. All through the gravelly drift soils and subsoils of
Ohio may be found cut-like depressions so deep that they
can not be drained through to lower ground except by cut-
ting 6, 10, and even 15 feet deep, or more, through interven-
ing land, which would cost too much. These small pockets
are often excellent land, only subject to flooding by sudden
showers running down the adjacent slopes and not soaking
away until the crop, say of wheat or potatoes, is perhaps
ruined. If the adjacent subsoil is gravel, the problem may
be solved so that it will pay. Mr. T. B. Terry, of Hudson,
O., has drained a rather difficult one of this sort lately (not
his first) by running a main drain right into the bank toward
where the outlet would be if the main were carried far
enough. This bank he found, as he expected, to have a por-
ous gravel subsoil. Into this he ran the main, several rods,
six feet deep or more (if I remember his statement correctly),
until he judged the distance gave the gravel time and capac-
ity to absorb from the tile main the water brought by it

TILE DRAINAGE 105

from the cuplike depression during heavy showers or siiow-
IhaAvs. Then in the depression he laid a system of laterals,
pretty close together, and joined each to the main, to take
the surface-water down and into the main rapidly. He re-
ports that it works perfectly, as do other smaller systems of
drains without outlets, on his farm and others. But for this
you must have a gravelly, sandy, or other quite porous sub-
soil.

SILT OR SAND WORKING IN AT THE JOINTS.

On this subject, as well as the foregoing, I have had no
experience, as all my drainage has been where the subsoil is
clayey. Hut I have received so valuable a letter from Mr.
W. Trowbridge, of Painesville, O., that I here give the main
part of it.

This and most of the other queries and suggestions that
follow came to me because of my articles in The Ohio Farmer,
and most of them have been answered in that paper in sub-
stance as here. Mr. Trowbridge says :

I do not now remember of your saying any thing about
covering the joints of the tile with any other material than
earth. Now, will you please allow me to make a suggestion
or two?

1. As to covering the joints, perhaps in a tenacious clay no
other covering than the material taken from the ditch is
needed. But soils reqummj draining are not all days. Where
I have (lone the most of my work, the soil is sandy and a
black friable loam, underlaid at a depth of from two to five
feet with clay. The question was, how to keep the fine sand
from entering and filling the tile. I think I have solved the
problem in a very satisfactory way, at least to myself. I am
using common building-paper, cut into pieces to suit the size
of the tile (for 2-Hnch tile, 2x8i inches is about right). One
of these pieces, laid over each joint, effectually pi events the
silt from entering the tile, at least as far as the paper ex-
tends. In laying the tile I always carry a mason's trowel in
my hand, and, after placing the two ends of the tile as close-
ly together as possible, place a trowelful of earth directly on
each paper as laid.

I have uncovered tile after it has been in the ground three
years, and always found the^paper^intact^and excluding the

106 TILE DRAINAGE

dirt as well as when first laid, but, of course, rotten, and of
no account when disturbed.

This idea of using paper is not original with me. I had it
from Col. Waring, in an article of his published (not in his
book) in (I think) the American Agriculturist, years after his
book was issued. But the use of buildinq-pafer is an idea of
my own. I buy it by the roll, expressly for this purpose.

ESTABLISHING GRADE.

. On this point the same letter says :

Another point, which I think to be very essential, is to get
the bottom of the ditch of a true and uniform grade, espe-
cially where there is but a slight fall For this purpose we
use a light, strong linen line stretched directly over and at a
certain height above the proposed bottom of the ditch (7 feet
is a convenient height); then with a light wooden rod 7
feet long the workman can cut down so the rod will just set
under the line. By using the rod at frequent intervals, a
careful workman can, with absolute certainty, make a true
and even grade. The line must be supported at intervals of
about 60 feet.

This letter is valuable because written out of actual, suc-
cessful experience. The line he recommends is used instead of
the "boning -rods," mentioned before in this little book,
and recommended by Waring and others.

QUICKSAND POCKETS.

I have, in a few places, struck small quicksand pockets
just where the tile should lie. To prevent the tiles from
sinking out of true I have laid strips of board, 1x4 or 1x6
inches, and of the necessary length, right on the quicksand
at the proper grade, and laid the tiles on these, and covered
with clay, writh strips of tin or of heavy paper, over the
joints. Tarred or oiled building-paper would be best. The
work has been successful. Others who have had longer
strips of quicksand have reported success by the same
means.

SILT-BASINS, ^MAN-HOLES," ETC.

I have never found these necessary for my soil, with my
excellent fall. The Storrs & Harrison Co. (nurseries) Paines-
ville, O., have tiled large areas of very level land near Lake

TILE DRAINAGE 107

Erie, in Painesville. Silt, or fine sediment, troubles them
considerably. At intervals they simply sink shallow wells in
the course of long laterals, some three feet deeper than the
drain, and stone them up, running the laterals into and out
of these wells. The silt settles in these wells, or " silt-
basins," and can be cleaned out in dry times. I understand,
too, that they grade mainly by soil-water, digging when the
ground is wet and nursery work not pressing, and that they
open up an ent're stretch of lateral and begin to lay tiles
from the upper end, so that the muddy soil water (mud-
dier while digging) may not run into the tiles from above,
and partly choke them in construction. Many of their later-
als, too, empty into deep open ditches, cleaned out as often
as necessary, and bridged as required. In such cases the
last few tiles near the outlet are laid on a narrow board ,
which projects into the open ditch a foot or so, and helps
keep the outlet clear and unobstructed.

USE OF STONES.

Mr. A. 13. Cowan, of Morgan Co., says :

I have land that "slips," and is in permanent pasture. I
don't intend to plow it, as it is heavy limestone soil, and well
set in blue-grass. The question is^ how to drain it, as it is
rough. There is a stone-quarry above, and tons of cobble-
stones. Would you advise digging a ditch and then break
them and throw them in? Or would it be better to build in
the stone so as to make a passageway? 1 have a quarry
where I can get stone out from t to 2 inches thick, and as
smooth as slate.

I would use tiles rather than stones. They require less
width of ditch, and hence the expense of digging is less.
They are laid much more rapidly than stones, and last lon-
ger unobstructed. But if you decide to use stones, then lay a
row of long and rather square cobbles on each side of the
bottom of the ditch, and cover with flat stones, two courses
deep, and then throw in a foot deep of loose stones, and then
lill with soil. This is the way I laid drains for my father 40
years ago, before tiles were made in this region, and they

108 TILE DRAINAGE

worked well for many years.! This plan makes a regular
channel. Stone drains do p?etty well if each has its outlet,
but you can not well lay out a system of mains and laterals,
as with tiles. I bury hundreds of loads of stones in excava-
tions in sidehills, and grade and plow over them to get them
out of the way, and use only tiles for drains.

ROOTS IN TILE DRAINS.

W. B. Hall, of Strambury, Pa., asks about proper depth,
distance apart, and whether roots from a vineyard will ob-
struct the drains. Depth, 21 to 3-J- feet. Distance, 2 to 3 rods
in compact clay ; further in more porous soils. The question
of roots in drains is an important one, and I can not do bet-
ter than to quote from an article by myself, in the Country
Gentleman for June 17, 1880. with such notes as later experi-
ence seems to require.

IS THERE DANGER FROM ROOTS?

Yes, and no. No, under ordinary circumstances : yes. under
occasional conditions. It does not seem to be, on the part of the
roots, a question of ability, but of desire. They can enter the
tiles without the least difficulty, but they do not usually desire to
do so— at least, so as to obstruct the drains.

As to the ability of the roots, even of wheat and clover, and
other cereals and grasses, to enter the drains, I have not now the
slightest doubt. I formerly supposed the cases given in the
books, of wheat roots, etc., growing to a depth of three feet, and
even four, were somewhat exceptional, or applied only to mellow
subsoil, and that in a very hard, stiff clay they would not extend
so deep. But I have lately finished laying about three miles of
tiles, three feet deep, in a wheat-field where wheat grew last
year too; and every spadeful that I took the trouble to examine,
even from the bottom course, had very many tine, live wheat
roots all through it, and many nearly decayed roots of last year's
wheat. How much deeper than three feet they went I did not
dig to ascertain, except that our drains sometimes, from uneven-
ness of surface, went as low as three and a half feet, but never
below the roots. Though not in my present line of thought, I
can not but notice the wisdom of this provision of nature. The
surface was very dry — no rain for four weeks; but the subsoil at
the depth of three feet, or even two, was quite moist, and these
roots pumped water to keep the wheat from withering. Wheat,
we all know, stands drouth wonderfully, especially on clayey
loam, and the reason is plain.

TILE DRAINAGE 109

WHY ROOTS DO NOT USUALLY OBSTRUCT DRAINS.

Because they do not wish to do so. in a well -constructed drain
there is ordinarily no inducement. A few days ago I took up a
joint of an old main to insert a new lateral, and examined closely.
There were plenty of wheat roots about the tile, and a few had
feebly entered the cracks. But finding no moisture and no soil or
" silt"— in short, nothing but a dry, empty hole — they had given
it up as a bad job, and literally backed out and gone again into
the soil for moisture. They concluded they couldn't "make"
any thing there, according to the doctrine, " Ex nihilo nihilftt"-
'* You can't make something out of nothing." And in well-
constructed drains in clay soil, or in any soil that is not ''springy,"
this will, I think, be the ordinary result. At all events, the
drains on such soils do last many years, with no tendency to
stoppage from roots. There is no moisture in the drains to lure
the roots, except when there is too much moisture everywhere
else.

When will roots obstruct drains? I answer: When there is
water or damp silt in the drains and dry ness in the soil. This
will occur in improperly constructed drains, or when there is
perennial water in the drains from springs or springy ground
higher up the slope, and dryness in the soil through which the
drains pass, and on which are gro \ying crops. Even in ordinarily
dry soils, with no running water in the tiles in summer, if there
are ;' dips," or depressions, in the drain, water will stand confined
for some time after the flow ceases, and silt will lodge, and roots
will enter and help make the stoppage complete and permanent.
The remedy— or, rather, preventive— here is to construct the drain
on a true grade, and have no '' dips." In case of perennial water
in the tiles, the remedy is not so simple. If the soil through
which the water flows becomes itself dry, the roots will surely
seek the water in the tiles. How shall they be excluded, and yet
the water be admitted from the adjacent soil, as well as from the
spring or springy ground above? The only way I know is to use
soft, porous tiles, exclude all that have " pin-holes " in them, and
lay the joints in hydraulic cement. The water will enter the
pores of the tiles, but the roots can not. If any one doubts about
the water entering, let him lay out a few large, soft-burnt tiles in
a commencing shower, and see how they swallow the big drops
as soon as the latter fall. Or let him set such a tile on end in
piaster of Paris, or cement, on a board or plate; and when the
cement or plaster is hardened, fill the tile full of water. But it
must be quite soft- baked and porous, and such tiles are not so
durable, and should never, I think, be used except in case of
such danger from roots.*

* NOTE.— Sept. 18, 189J.— This was written in 1880. I had not then (I
may as well confess) actually made the experiment of setting a soft-baked
tile on its (Mid in plaster of Paris and filling- it with water, but I took

110 TILE DRAINAGE.

IS THERE DANGER FROM TREE -ROOTS?

Yes, great danger under the same conditions as in the case of
cereals. The roots of aquatic, or water-loving trees, like the
willow and some kinds or elm, seem to have almost no limit to
their growth, either horizontally or vertically ; and they seem to
go in search of moisture or richness as if by instinct, and to know
just where to find it. I have traced the roots of a smallish elm
some 25 feet horizontally, and 6 feet vertically, to their feeding-
place in a grave in an old cemetery; and I have, in plowing,
traced the roots of a large elm one hundred feet horizontally by
measurement. These roots will enter even a tk pin-hole" in tiles,
if they can find running water. Mr. H. B. Camp, of Cuyahoga
Falls, O., told me a few days since that he once helped to take up
an obstracted drain whose joints were laid in cement, I think he
said. At all events, a willow root had entered at a pin-hol6 not
larger than a small darning-needle, and spread into a fibrous
mass and packed the tile full of roots for several feet — the only
connection with the upper world and their lungs (the leaves of
the tree) being this small, threadlike root that entered at the
pin-hole. It is better to cut such trees down when they are near
a damp drain, and see that they are dead. Prof. Townshend, of
the Ohio Agricultural College, Columbus, exhibited in one of his
lectures last winter a dark, stiff, fibrous, spongelike, solid cylinder,
some three feet long and three inches in diameter. When the
class had doftfe guessing, he gave its history. It was the irillmr-
root core of his cellar-drain. Knowing the nature of these roots
he cut the willow down before he laid the drain, and burned the
stump all he could ; but in spite of that, its roots stopped his
cellar-drain at a depth of five or six feet.

My experience and observation lead me to these conclusions :

1. In ordinary cases there is no danger from roots; and very
hard-burned and even glazed tiles should be used, the water
entering at the joints. Hard tiles are more durable.

2. Where there is danger from roots, as in the cases described
above, soft, porous tiles should be used, with joints laid in cement.
They may not last so long, but they seem to be the only kind that
will admit water and exclude roots. [See the note above.]

3. Mere "collars" without cement will not exclude roots alto-
gether, and great care must be taken to use no tiles that have
pin-holes in them.

4. A uniform grade is important, or at least there must be no
" up grade " between the head and the outlet. It will probably
cause permanent stoppage.

the word of writers who claimed to have done so. Very thorough
experiments since made, and reported in Chapter VII. (pages 7^—76 ),
seemed to prove that water will not enter a drain made as advised , viz.,
with soft-baked tiles and cemented joints, fast enough to amount to
any thing-. Of this, again at the close of the quotation.

TILE DRAINAGE. Ill

5. All aquatic trees near the line of the drain should be killed
before the drain is laid. They are a pest.

And I notice that English writers on drainage have been led by
similar experience and observation to similar conclusions.

W. I. CHAMBERLAIN.

On the above I now (1891) remark, that, where water from
a spring or springy place is to be conveyed through soil that is
dry or likely to be so in summer, I would convey it in hard
tiles with cemented joints, and drain the land locally in the
ordinary way. As to the desire of roots to enter drains in
common clayey soil, I may say that I have lately dug down
to my drains in an apple -orchard set 21 years ago, with trees
38 feet apart, and whose roots long since met and passed
each other, and wl lose branches have nearly met ; and the
drains are wholly free from any obstruction by roots.

But slop-drains, bath-room, water-closet, and sink-drains
from the house, which are constantly damp and often flushed,
and which often run past or near evergreens and various
sorts of shrubbery around the house, such drains should be
of glazed sewer-pipe, socket joints, laid in water-lime ce-
ment, or the roots, especially ^of evergreens and aquatic
trees, will obstruct them.

DRAINAGE BY STEAM- PUMPING.

(1has. S. Killmer, Arenac, Mich., writes :

There are immense tracts of low-lying lands bordering
inland lakes which I believe maybe reclaimed by artificial
means, viz , steam-pumps or wind-engines. I understand
the question has been favorably decided in several instances
near Bay City, Mich., and would refer you to the Wilson
Hoop Co., West Bay City, Mich., for information. They
have, I hear, a large tract of land successfully drained by
this process It seems to me that, in view of records in Hol-
land and other countries, our leading men have strangely
neglected a very important matter ; and while our thickly
populated States are breeding miasma from their countless
marshes, our statesmen (!) are asking for millions to develop
the desert regions by irrigation for the benefit of railroad
corporations.

I give this suggestive letter nearly entire, so that any who

112 TILE DRAINAGE.

choose may investigate. It did not seem to me to lie quite
within the scope of this little book to investigate and devel-
op the matter. Its scope is to show advantages and meth-
ods of drainage for clayey and swampy lands that have out-
lets, without expensive pumping. There are many million
acres of such land ; and until much more of this is tiled, and
land advances in price more nearly to prices in Holland, it
does not seem to me that drainage by pumping will pay the
individual farmer unless it be in exceptional cases. When
the time comes that large areas of such land should be
drained it will probably need to be done by taxation placed
upon the land reclaimed, and proportioned to benefits to the
land.

CHAPTER XI.

Estimates : Sizes of Tiles Required : Cost of
Draining if Done Economically.

SIZES OF TILK

I discussed this matter quite fully in The Country Gentle-
man of Jan. 9, 1879. I have since seen no reason to change
my views, and therefore give that carefully prepared article
nearly entire, with due credit to that excellent paper:

THE SIZE OF DRAINS.

About the size of drains. I can not agree with Engineer and
P. Q., either theoretically or practically. We can never figure it
out from the annual rainfall and the discharging capacity of a
given-sized tile at a given rate, as, indeed, Engineer intimates.
But if we try, we must at least figure carefully on our assumed
data. For example, when we are told (page 759) that a one-inch
tile, discharging at the rate of four miles per hour, will discharge
all the water that falls on 3(> acres of land, we begin to figure as
requested. The rainfall for Ohio and most of New York we find
to be from 32 to 44 inches— average 38 inches. In parts of Eastern
New York and of New England it is 44 to 56 inches— average 50.
[American Cyclopaedia, last edition.] Take 38 as the basis. This
gives about 23% gallons to the square foot, from which we easily
find the number of gallons on ,,36 acres. By use of a formula

TILE DRAINAGE. 113

explained in geometry, and constantly used in trigonometry and
engineering. \ve gel the area of a cross-section of the inch tile,
and from this and the rate of flow we readily find the number of
gallons discharged each hour, which is about 862. Dividing the
whole number of gallons by this, and reducing, we find it would
take over 4 years and 11 months to discharge the rainfall of one
year, even if the tile works up to full capacity steadily all the
time. And even here the rate is overestimated, for none but a
very heavy grade will give a rate of four miles an hour in an inch
tile, owing to the great loss by friction in small rough tubes.

Now, all such calculations are utterly unreliable, however
accurately made, unless they are based on careful experiment,
and take' into account all the variations of friction in tiles of
different caliber and inside smoothness, and varying pressure
caused by different grades, etc. They mislead in both directions.
On the one hand they assume that the tiles must discharge all
the water that falls on a field, whereas they discharge only the
surplus beyond the point of saturation, and sometimes for six or
eight months evaporation and absorption by the growth of
crops leave not a drop to reach the tiles. On the other hand, they
suppose a uniform daily or weekly rainfall, just up to, and never
beyond, the capacity of the tiles, whereas the tiles are sometimes
idle, as we have seen, for months, and sometimes, on a soil already
saturated, comes a rainfall of six inches in a single week, or even
• three inches in a single shower. Now, the tiles must convey all
this away promptly, or it will wash and gully the surface-earth,
or stand stagnant for days. We must calculate, then, for the
maximum ever required of the tiles. To calculate according to
the annual rainfall is like calculating the annual traffic to be
borne up by a bridge, and from that estimating how strong it
must be each minute; whereas we know that, as with the " won-
derful one-hoss shay," so with the bridge, "the weakes' spot
must stan' the strain." even the heaviest strain that can ever
come upon it : and the bridge must be known, from formulas and
calculations based on experiment, to have as its " factor of safety"
at least live times the strength ever likely to be required of it.
The steel wire cables of the Brooklyn bridge have a strength of
80 tons to the square inch of section, and the four main cables are
each to be 16 inches in diameter, so that the aggregate strength
of the main span will be immensely beyond the combined force of
wind, storm, and burdens ever transported.

These facts we all know. Now, it is the same way in drainage,
though the risks involved are not so enormous. The main drain
or drains must be up to the greatest emergency, or there is risk of
partial or perhaps total failure. What, then, are the greatest
emergencies? Facts alone can determine. Take a single one as
a sample. This year (1878) here, while wheat stood in the shock
we had over .'i inches of rain in 24 hours, on my farm. The ground
was fully saturated by previous rains, and there was but little
evaporation for a few days, and but little absorption by growth,

114 TILE DEAINAGE.

as the wheat was cut. Therefore the drains had all this water to
handle. Suppose, now (by P. Q.'s rule), we have one four-inch
drain as an outlet for forty acres of laterals. Take Engineer's
rate of flow, viz.. four miles per hour, though it will require a
pretty heavy grade and full pressure to give as high a rate. If I
figure correctly it would take the main nearly ten days to free the
field simply of surface-water; and unless there was surface drain-
age the shocks would have to stand in the water a week, as
thousands of acres did on undrained land in the Black Swamp
region near Toledo.

On my own farm one field (where there was wheat) happened
to have 3 four-inch mains to take the water gathered by 12 acres
of laterals. The " lay of the field v required three separate mains,
and I was determined, from previous experience, to have them
large enough, and so used four-inch tile for the lower half of
each. They are none too large. Not less than five times within
a year they have been crowded to their utmost capacity, even
with surface drainage for a short time. In the case of the big
rain mentioned, they freed the ground of surface-water in one
day — that is, as fast as it fell, as they should according to the
above estimate. Each had four instead of forty acres to drain,
and did it in one day instead of ten. The average grade of the
field is three feet to the hundred.

The rule given by the essayist at Hartford (mentioned by
Engineer) is based on correct principles for a limited range of
sizes of tiles and variations of grade. It is, in brief, uTo find how
many acres a given-sized main will drain, square its diameter."
Thus, a three-inch main should drain nine acres; a four-inch
0113 sixteen, and so on. But for our soil and variable rainfall I
am sure this gives far too many acres. I should say, for sixes
from three to six inches, and grades less than three feet to the
hundred, square the diameter and divide by four. Thus :

A three-inch main will drain 2J4 acres.
A four-inch main will drain 4 acres.
A five-inch main will drain 6# acres.
A six-inch main will drain 9 acres.

For heavier grades it may do to divide by three. Thus :
A three-inch main will drain 3 acres.
A four-inch main will drain o1^ acres.
A five-inch main will drain 8^ acres.
A six-inch main will drain 12 acres.

But it must be borne in mind, that, the steeper the grade, the
greater the danger of surface wash, which often causes great loss
of manure, and even of soil itself.

My conclusions in brief would be; 1. Have your mains large
enough — better too large than too small. Don't economize here.
It will be "saving at the spigot and wasting at the bung.-'

2. By " large enough " I mean so large as to take the water as
fast as' the soil can filter it and the laterals collect it.

TILE DRAINAGE. 115

3. Expense may be saved by diminishing the size of the mains
toward their upper ends. For example, three-inch will dp till it,
has received water' from two acres of laterals, then four-inch up
to four acres, then five-inch/ up to six acres, and so on.

Since the above was written we have had twelve hours of
moderate rain which has melted four inches of snow; total water,
over an inch. The soil was saturated before ; surface not frozen.

1 have been to examine the main drains on my own and two
neighboring farms. They are as follow

Two two-inch tile drains draining- about 1 acre each.
Two three-inch tile drains draining about \%. acres each.
Seven four-inch t ile drains draining1 about 4 acres each.
Five four-inch tile drains draining- about 5% acres each.
One six-inch tile drain draining- about 12 acres.

All are worked up to full capacity. The first three sets in the
above table come under the first rule given above. They have a
small surplus of water that they can not carry. The last two sets
come under the second rule. They have quite a large surplus.
In the case of a few, surface wash comes on from undrained land
lying above. Due allowance is made for this.

W. I. CHAMBERLAIN.

I think our American drainage authorities recommend
sizes far too small. The latest of these authorities, C. G.
Elliott, a civil and drainage engineer whose work has been
chiefly among the level soils and large rainfalls of Illinois,
says : " For drains not less than three feet deep, and with
grades of not less than 3 inches to the ICO feet, — for such
drains not more than 500 feet long, a two-inch tile will drain

2 acres. Lines more than 500 feet long should not be laid of
two-inch tiles."

Putting his rules in tabular form we have :

A 2-inch tile will drain 2 acres.
A 3-inch tile will drain 5 acres.
A 4-inch tile will drain 12 acres.
A 5-inch tile will drain 20 acres.
A 6-inch tile will drain 40 acres.
A 7-inch tile will druin Ml acres.

Waring says : u In view of all the information that can be
gathered on the subject, the following directions are given
as perfectly reliable for drains four feet or more in depth,
laid on a well-regulated fall of even 3 inches in 100 feet :

116 TILE DBAIKAGE

For 2 acres, Itf-inch pipes (with collars).

For 8 acres, 2#-inch pipes (with collars).

For 20 acres, 3V*-inch pipes.

For 40 acres, two 3*4-iuch pipes, or one 5-inch sole tile.

For 50 acres, 6-inch pipes or sole tile.

For 100 acres, 8-inch pi pas, or two 6-inch sole tiles.

"It is not intended that these drains will immediately
remove all the water of the heaviest storm, but they will
always remove it fast enough for practical purposes."

I do not think tfwy will.

French gives several pages of dense and discouraging
tabulated figures showing the velocity in feet per second
and discharge in gallons per 24 hours for many sizes of tiles
and grades of fall; but he gives, so far as I can lind, no
definite recommendations. He says : tk The size of tiles is a
matter of much importance. Tiles should be large enough
to carry off in a reasonable time all the surplus water that
may fall upon the land. Here the English rules will not be
safe for us ; for although England has many more rainy days
than we have, yet we have more inches of water from the
clouds in a year. Instead of their eternal drizzle we have
thunder-showers in summer, and in spring and autumn north-
east storms, when the windows of heaven are opened, and a
deluge, except in duration, bursts upon us. Snows cover the
fields until April (in the North), when they suddenly dissolve,
often under heavy showers of rain, and planting-time is at
once upon us. It is desirable that all the snow and rain
water should pass through the soil into the drains, instead of
overflowing the surface, so as to save the elements of fertility
with which such water abounds, and also to prevent the
washing of the soil. We require, then, a greater capacity of
drainage, and larger tiles, than do the English, for our drains
must do a greater work than theirs, and in less time.'"

And yet he gives no tangible rule or opinion as to whai
sized mains are required here for various areas.

Klippart quotes French's tables, and, in substance, his
remarks about the English drizzle, but gives no definite or
tangible rule or formula.

TILE DKAINAGE. 117

From much observation 1 am convinced that all or nearly
all the authorities down to date have advised too small tiles,
basing their judgment more upon English and Continental
practice than upon American conditions. The general esti-
mates or rules given in my article quoted just above, from
The Omnti-y Gcntlnn«n, are based upon much observation,
and tested by many years of careful experience on my own
farm ; and I believe they are safe for grades of less than 3 ft.
per 101) ft (and, of course, for greater grades); and for annual
rainfall not exceeding o() inches, with occasional phenomenal
rainfalls of 2 or even 4 inches in '24 hours. The sizes there
given will carry the water as fast as the soil can filter it into
the drains, if the latter are 30 inches deep — deep enough
for clay.

The tendency toward larger tiles, especially in the rather
level prairie West, is manifest and wise. The soil there is
more porous, and hence laterals may be much further apart,
and wisely laid deeper (even 4 or 4i ft. deep) than in our more
compact clayey soils in Ohio, (where 30 inches is as deep as
best economy will warrant). Also, as the grades there are
usually less, the sizes must be larger. The manufacture of 1
and H inch tiles has long been discontinued, even in Ohio,
and few 2-inch ones are now made* in some sections, though
they are laryt mouyh for an outlet for an acre, with good
grade. But in Illinois, 3 and 4 inch tiles are now the smallest
sizes found at most tile-kilns. The material is not expensive,
and the tendency toward larger sizes is wise, except where
freights or long hauling makes the weight important.

COST OF DRAINAGE IF DONE ECONOMICALLY.

Ill a series of articles in The Country Gmtleman in 1878 I
discussed the cost, and gave actual figures from a job of 15
acres, where much of the work was done with teams. The
ground was previously plowed so as to leave a very deep
dead-furrow just where each lateral was to be. In this a
four-horse team (four abreast) plowed back and forth once

118 TILE DRAINAGE.

with a heavy plow in a pretty damp time, making a total
depth of some 15 or 16 inches. A single spade-depth with a
long spade, and a groove cut with the bottom ing-scoop, fin-
ished the digging, and most of the tilling was done with the
plow and team ; and in the first plowing of the land there-
after the back furrows (as usual) were thrown into the
former dead-furrows, and the tilling was complete, and the
land leveled up. The conclusion of No. 3 of this series, Tlw
Country Gentleman, April 11, 1878. is as follows, slightly
condensed :

Two men can thus average fifty rods a day together (each
taking a ditch thus plowed, and digging one depth in it). I
follow ; cut a true smooth groove about an inch and a half deep,
with the regular ditchers' *' scoop " or groove-cutter; distribute
the tiles from the piles, lay them carefully />»/ hand, walking on
them as I lay them, to settle them firmly; and fill in the earth
thrown out by the spades, packing it firmly around and above the
tiles. Thus three of us do the entire handwork of fifty rods in a
day. The rest of the clay and all the soil is to be filled in with
team and plow after the handwork is all done. Each night, or
whenever rain interrupts, all the handwork should be finished as
far as begun— straw wads put in the exposed ends of the tiles, and
the water turned aside from the ditch above, if necessary.

If the field is very stony, two men can hardly dig fifty rods this
one course, but in most of the fields of mine and neighboring
farms they can. I used to dig the bottom course with a very
narrow " bottbming-spade," Just wide enough to receive the tiles.
But 1 find that most men win dig faster with a six-inch or a four-
inch spade, and one can cut the gutter, or groove, better if the
ditch is wide enough to walk in, and to curve the groove slightly
to avoid fixed stones. In case of a very heavy stone, sunk directly
in the line of the ditch, I find it better to curve the whole ditch
gradually a foot or two right or left than to spend time to remove
or sink the stone. The curve is easily made, as the upper part of
the ditch is already made so wide with the team.*

In filling the rest of the ditch, the loose clay thrown out by the
plow should first be plowed back, the off horse walking in the
ditch to tramp it; then a furrow or two of so;.l from each side, the
off horse still walking directly over the tiles as much of the time
as possible. One day with man and team will do all the team-
tilling for the field.

We have, then, the entire cost of draining the fifteen acres 2^±
feet deep, and 2 rods apart, taking present prices of tile and labor
here :

* Such a curve is shown in Fig:. 20, page 80.

TILE DRAINAGE. 11<>

20 ditches, 5H rods each U63 rods of 2 inch tile at 16 cts. per rod.* 185.60

( 27 rods of 3-inch tile at 32 cts. per rod 8.64

*< 27 rods of 4-inch tile at 48 cts. per rod 12.96

f 44 days' work of common ditchers at $1.12J£ per day 49.50

22 days' work of head ditcher at $1.50 per day 33.00

Cost of plowing ditch with four-horse team 7.00

Cost of tilling with two-horse team 3.00

Cost of drawing tile from the yard or car, one mile distant 10.00

Tse of tools 3.00

Allow for hindrances, interruptions, and extra stony spots (time). 10.00
Total .$322.70

Dividing- by 15 we have $21 51 as the entire cost per acre.

If the field is very uneven, so that the laterals can not be
parallel with either of its sides, or even with each other, or so as
to require deep digging in places, or a greater number of main
drains and junctions, the cost will be increased. Still, the plow
can be used to great advantage even then by simply turning out
one furrow or two each way and sinking a third as described,
wherever a drain is to run. In this case the four-horse team
should be used all the time. I know of no field near here which
can not be drained 2% feet deep, 2 rods apart, for less than $25.00
per acre. Indeed, most farmers could drain three or four acres
each year with almost no cash outlay except for the tile. The
draining is at a time of year when little other farmwork can be
done advantageously; and I know of few, if any, clay fields which
\vould not be benefited more than that for cultivation and rota-
tion of crops. If even a part of each farm is tile-drained we can
follow mixed farming instead of dairying exclusively; and I know
whole townships on the Western Reserve which I think are being
slowly impoverished by the latter, as at present pursued.

W. I. CHAMBERLAIN.

I may add, that the total average cost per acre of all my
drainage, even where less digging and filling than here
described was done by team and more by hand, and where
prices of labor have been higher than$1.12i per day, has been
about $28.00 per acre where the laterals are 2 rods apart (33
feet), and about $lo.OO to $16.00 where the laterals are 3 rods
apart (49i feet). Tiles are somewhat cheaper now than then,
especially the three-inch and four-inch sizes.

PROPER DEPTH FOR TILES.

As already incidentally remarked, I believe 30 inches is, on
the whole, the best depth for tenacious and tough clayey
soils. I have some 20 acres laid 3 feet, but I now lay only 30

* These si/es cost somewhat less now.

120 TILE DRAINAGE

inches, and find that seems to do just as well. Below 30
inches our clayey soils, in Ohio at least, are very hard to dig,
and very slow to filter the water. In the deep black porous soils
of Iowa, with deep freezing, 4 feet is none too dee]) for later-
als, and 4i for mains, and 4 or 5 rods apart will do.

CHAPTER XII.

Conclusion.

The little book is done. It has been lovingly and enthusi-
astically written. I believe in drainage, especially for the
rather flat and slightly rolling but very cold, tenacious, and
naturally rather irresponsive and unproductive clayey lands
of ^Northern Ohio and other sections like it. I believe that
tiling properly, and then tilling properly, with manures, fer-
tilizers, clover, and rotation, will make of such soils a very
garden for fertility, excellent for wheat, oats, clover, corn,
and even potatoes. I should like to persuade my brother-
farmers to take the road that has helped me pay my debts
and reach a far better net income from the farm. I know
that I have written rather as an advocate than as a judge ; but
I have tried to write with truthfulness and fairness. I have
no personal pecuniary interest in leading a single man to lay
a single tile, or to plow more, or to use more manures, fertil-
izers, or clover. I am not financially interested in any way
nor in any degree in the manufacture or sale of tiles, clover
seed, or tillage implements; but I am greatly interested in
the great problem of making our clayey farms more produc-
tive, and their owners more prosperous. The sandy loams,
the limestone soils, the black soils, all reward the labors of
the farmer more abundantly at first. It takes more skill to
make a good living out of the clayey soils, hitherto given over
almost exclusively to grazing and meadows. Tile drainage I
believe to be the basis of successful tillage on such soils.

TILE DRAINAGE. 121

PERSONAL LETTERS OF ADVICE.

Do not ask them. I am a pretty good-natured man, but an
extremely busy one. I presume most farmers have little
idea how heavy a mail such writers as Mr. Terry, Mr. Gould,
Mr. Brown, and myself, have. I find that" I can answer
personal letters from strangers only with great brevity, and
only when a postal card or prepaid envelope, or stamp, at
least, is inclosed for reply. If the letters are of general
interest I can reply through The Ohio Farmer, if so request-
ed. But as to questions of drainage, I have tried in this
little book to tell all I know that is necessary for you to know
about its principles and practice. If I have failed in the six
weeks or so of hard work put upon it, for liberal pay from
the publisher, I shall surely fail in the few moments I can
afford to donate to you on a postal-card reply. If you have a
really difficult problem of drainage, employ a competent
engineer, or at least an experienced ditcher, a real expert at
the work. I could not advise wisely except by seeing the
land.

WHERE TO HrV TILES.

In particular, do not ask me this. I can not tell you, in
your locality. Consult the advertisements in your best agri-
cultural and local papers ; ask your local freight agent, and
write to manufacturers for carload rates delivered at your
station, if they are not made near enough to haul with teams.
Use your eyes and pen and the mails, or even advertise in
your agricultural paper, something like this :

WANTED. — Carload rates on tile, delivered at Station,

(m the Railroad.

Then club with a few neighbors, if you do not want a car-
load yourself. Begin and tile a few acres near the barn, and
then till it u as well as you know how or can learn how; " and
as your income increases from that investment, use the
surplus funds in draining a littl more each year, thoroughly,

122 TILE DRAINAGE.

and economically, at the times when other farm work is least
pressing.

As promised in the introduction,! have not given here any
of what I may call the ancient history of drainage, curious
and interesting as is the evolution of any science or art, but
of little use now to the average farmer, who wants most to
know the best present methods, implements, and materials,
and the reasons why they are best. 1 have also avoided the
discussion of curious but really useless side issues and ques-
tions. But 1 have tried hard to touch all points that are of
real importance to those who wish to tile-drain portions of
their farms, and do it economically and well.

TABLE OF CONTENTS, AND INDEX.

If you wish to learn systematically the scope of the book in
a few moments, study the table of contents and the introduc-
tion. If you wish to find just where any particular subject is
discussed, look for it in the alphabetical index. It has been
prepared with care.

TESTING 15 V TRIAL.

If you wish to learn whether the advice given in this little
book is sound, test it carefully and thoroughly on such parts
of your farm as seem to need tile drainage.

THE END.

TILE DRAINAGE. 123

APPENDIX BY A. I. ROOT.

As early as I can remember I had a particular liking for
water and every thing pertaining to it. My early home was
on one of the hills in Mogadore, Summit Co., O.; and at the
base of these hills, beautiful soft-water springs broke forth in
abundance ; therefore my childhood plays were largely con-
nected with building dams, constructing little water-wheels,
carrying water along the sides of the bank in little races,
ditches, etc. And during the forty or more years that have
passed, running water has had a special fascination for me.
Perhaps this may account for the fact of my having had so
much to say about springs, artesian wells, irrigating plants,
etc., during my travels. The problem of getting water where
we want it, and when we want it, and getting rid of it when
we don't want it, has been a most interesting one to me. Al-
most the first useful work I did in my childhood was to make
garden ; and with my good mother for a teacher, it is not sttrange
that, in later life, I turn again and again to the garden for
both relaxation and enjoyment. One of the first problems in
gardening was to get rid of the water we did not want; and,
later on, another problem has been a fond one- the getting
of water for irrigation when we do want it. This latter,
however, will hardly come within the scope of the present
work. The former is, however, just what we do want. Just
as soon as spring opens we want to get rid of the surplus
moisture ; and even to this day there are few things 1 enjoy
more than making little open ditches to let the sin-plus water
run off. It is the first work I do in the spring, whenever

124 TILE DRAINAGE

there happens to be more water on the ground than the
drains will take away ; for in our locality at Medina, O., the
first obstacle to spring work is to get rid of the surplus
wetness.

In riding over the country, whenever I see water standing
in cat-swamps or sink-holes, doing nobody any good, and
damaging the crop, or the chances of a crop, I feel a strong-
impulse to let the water oft'. If the owners of such places
enjoyed the work as I do, I verily believe they would sit up
nights to drain off these eyesores on the land, if they could
not manage it otherwise. How I do like to see the water
run away, like a liberated bird ! and then to witness the
dismay of the frogs, turtles, and other denizens of such
places, is worth almost as much, if not quite, as to see the
wonderful crops which always reward such labor. A swamp,
a low wet place, or a springy place, is always a delight to me.
If the springy place furnishes water the year round, then it
is indeed a little gold-mine— at least, if the water in these
springs can be carried somewhere so as to make a nice water-
ing-trough for thirsty horses and cattle, to say nothing of
thirsty mankind.

UTILIZING SPRINGY PLACES.

Some time ago I visited a friend of mine who was trying to '
raise celery. It was suffering from drouth. Not many rods
away was some beautiful rich muck ; but he could not do
any thing with it because it was too wtt. In fact, a stream of
water was even then running away from the place. In a
very few minutes I had followed the water to a point where
it evidently had its source in a clump of rank weeds and
bushes ; and in a little time we traced it to a place that was
even higher than his suffering celery. With only a few
hours' work his wet place could have been thoroughly drain-
ed, and the water from the spring carried to where his grow-
ing celery needed it ; for the spring was a little higher than
any part of the garden. And yet, in spite of all I could say,

TILE DRAINAGE 12o

I rather think he never utilized the spring, or the ground
that it was spoiling by making it too wet. I have met quite
a number of cases quite similar.

MAKIXU CROOKED WATER-COU USES STRAIGHT.

All over our land we find streams of greater or less size
running through fields cultivated and uncultivated. The
natural course of these streams is zigzag here and there.
And that is not all. The greater part of them are constantly
changing their course. Each freshet starts a new channel.
The consequence is, a large part of the field, especially when
under cultivation, is wasted. On page 14, Fig. 5, friend
Chamberlain graphically describes this state of affairs. See,
also, page 62. Such a place was on our own ground when I
first settled here ten or twelve years ago. When I spoke of
using the low ground for a market-garden, everybody laugh-
ed at me. The first thing I did was to cut a straight chan-
nel for Champion Brook. We started where it came on my
land, and 'carried it almost in a straight line to a point
where it left my land. To do this I was obliged to cut
through a bank in one place six or eight feet deep. I soon
found I had made a mistake in thinking that I must cut my
ditch wide enough for the creek in time of high water. Had
I cut a shallow ditch and waited a little, the water would
have widened it very quickly, much cheaper than it was done
with horses, plow, and scraper. Of course, at every very big
freshet I was annoyed by seeing the water break over my
embankment and take its old course. It was a good deal
like bad habits ; with every fierce temptation, resolutions
are very apt to be swept away, and the water of passion
comes deeper than it did before. Pretty soon it began to be
a sort of standing joke, the fight I was having with Cham-
pion Brook ; and most people thought for a while that I
would give way and do as they did — let the brook go where
it wanted to. But I didn't. I do not like to fight or quarrel
with my neighbors ; but I do really enjoy a tussle with the

126 ' TILE DRAINAGE.

elements of mttuw . I enjoy coming out ahead too. Where
the water persisted in breaking over into the old channel, I
covered the embankment with tin scraps from the tinshop.
These were tramped into the clay and gravel. In fact, I
first made a horse-path right along the bank, and then a
wagon-road ; and with the aid of the tin, the dam has become
so solid and compact, that, even if the water goes over it in
a very high freshet, it does not move it away. At the same
time, I kept cleaning out the straight channel a little deeper.
It is now wide enough so we can take the big team and a
good plow and plow furrows the whole length in the center
of the channel up and down, during the first dry time in the
spring. Then men come along with shovels and throw the
dirt upon the bank, or carry it where it is needed to strength-
en the sides of the ditch. But after this, another trouble
came in. The water, during each freshet, persisted in cut-
ting the ditch a little wider, and it was encroaching upon
my valuable creek-bottom land. To stop this encroachment
I bought cedar posts and set them on each side of the creek,
in a line six feet apart. The posts were slanted back toward
the bank so that the pressure of the earth outside of them
should not be too great. Then the tops were secured by a
heavy piece of galvanized wire put around each post near
the top, the other end being made fast to a stone imbed-
ded in the embankment. This was to hold my fence bar-
ricade from being crowded over into the stream, and also
to keep the j osts in place, should a heavy washout occur
during a time of freshet. The posts were cut off in a line
where I wished the top of the bank to come, and the pieces cut
off were long enough to set in again, so each post made two.
Hemlock boards were nailed securely to the posts, and a 2 x 4
cap put on top. Then the dirt was banked back of it. The
wagon-road for gathering our crops was close up to this fence
or barricade. This work was done last spring. It has en-
dured some very heavy freshets, and yet stands now as
sound and solid as when it was put in. Did it pay ? Well,

TILE DKAINAGE. 127

you should come down to my creek-bottom ground when we
are gathering crops, and see the wonderful growth that we
have right in these very low places, where the frogs and
toads ten years ago used to hold kt high carnival " during the
greater part of the season. Underneath the rich black earth
of the surface is a porous, gravelly subsoil, such as is usually
found, I believe, on such creek bottoms. With the aid of
the deep ditch I have described, no underdraining is required
on this ground for a good many rods back ; and the growth
of all kinds of fruits and vegetables here is perfectly wonder-
ful. When I first began to plow up a certain portion of this
creek bottom, one of my best men tied his horses to a tree
and came back and told me he didn't believe I could ever
make any sort of garden in that ground. But I told him to
go ahead. But he again declared that I never could get
crops from the ground to pay the expense of digging out the
stones and roots, and getting it ready for plowing. I bade
him go back and stick to his job. The first crop on that
ground was onions, and it paid big. After onions we put on
the celery, and we have had celery, early or late, on the
ground almost ever since. A year or two ago, just for ex-
periment I secured three paying crops on this very piece of
ground. First, we picked a tremendous crop of Sharpless
strawberries. When the last berry was picked the straw-
berries were turned under, and a crop of radishes was put
on the ground. They grew so quickly that we commenced
selling them on the wagon just thirty days after the seed was
sown. Then we put turnips between the radishes, and had
an enormous crop of turnips. And so it has been ever since.
This ground is cropped incessantly, from the time the frost
leaves it until it freezes up again. This can scarcely be
called an open ditch; for at some seasons of the year it car-
ries a swift stream perhaps three feet deep and six feet wide.

SURFACE DRAINING.

Friend Chamberlain has had but little to say in regard to

128 TILE DRAINAGE.

this. In fact, he rather takes the ground that, where the
land is properly *mcfcrdrained, no arrangements need be
made for surface drainage. I have not found this to be the
case in market-gardening. As I look out of the window
while I write, I see about two acres of ground on a gentle
side hill. To prevent washes, I put in lines of tile only 20
feet apart. This usually takes away all surplus water about
as fast as it falls. With the heavy rains we have here in this
part of Ohio, my crops are often injured by being washed
out, notwithstanding this drainage. Of course, the tiles run
straight up and down hill, or as near it as may be ; but dur-
ing very heavy rains something in the way of surface drain-
age seems to be still needed. At one time last summer I
stood watching the ground from this very window. For an
hour or more the tiles seemed to carry all the water, even
though it rained in torrents. At last I could see by the
looks of the ground that it was fast reaching the point of
saturation. Then it began to burst through the furrows
here and there, and my nice, fine, heavily manured soil be-
gan to rush down into the ditch by the roadside. I had be-
fore taken the precaution to have the furrows run across the
hill instead of up and down, having previously tried the fur-
rows running up and down several seasons. In the middle
of the lot is a roadway. This roadway has been sunk down
to about the depth the plow goes— that is, the good soil has
been removed from the road, and taken to fill up hollows or
depressions. Well, a small millrace of water went down
this roadway, and that saved the land for two or three rods
on each side ; but it seemed to me during that heavy rain,
that a roadway, say once in six or eight rods, would have
been an excellent investment. Then if the ground were
plowed so as to make it a little the highest between the road-
ways, so the furrows would slant from the center each way
to the roadway, we should have it. When I visited J. W.
Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., I found he had adopted just this
plan. His roadways were each right over an underdrain

TILE DRAINAGE. 129

The land was thrown up into beds between roadways, be-
ing a little the highest in the center. These roadways were
used for paths for walking, or for running wheelbarrows or
running a light wagon to gather crops and distribute manure.
Where the roadways crossed, compost-heaps were made,
where all useless vines and weeds, trash and rubbish, were
stored and composted. This enabled him, in plowing, to
clear every thing out of the way of the team. Now, during
these excessively heavy rains, the water stood in the roadways
instead of on the crops. I hardly need tell you that Mr.
Smith stands perhaps almost at the head of market-gardeners
in the United States. I have visited most of the great gar-
deners, and I have never seen any thing like Mr. Smith's
forty acres.

FILLING UP DEPRESSIONS, ETC.

You will notice, from the above, that I recommend having
ground gradually brought into such shape that there will be
no depressions where water may stand for even an hour.
Friend Terry, in the strawberry - book, urges this quite
strongly'; and so thoroughly have I become convinced of the
importance of it that we had men go over the ground with
shovels just before the last plowing, and take the soft earth
from the higher portions and throw it into the depressions.
This was particularly needed in my creek-bottom land, where
the water, by its many years of coursing this way and that,
had made little hillocks, and depressions to match, in various
places throughout the ground. I noticed that, where water
stood for only a few hours on certain crops, it seemed to
harm them ; and by filling these depressions, and making
the general lay of the land so the water would run off in
some direction, I avoided having wet places in certain rows.
You may object that this is a great deal of trouble ; but,
please remember that, if the land is once got into proper
shape, it is so for ever ; and the sight of a field with no de-
pressions where water can stand and make certain spots in

130 TILE DRAINAGE.

the crop yellow and sickly, is worth a good deal to me, and
it is worth a great deal to the crop also.

AVOIDING GULLETS AND WASHOUTS.

A few weeks ago I visited Mr. J. W. Day, the great toma-
to-grower of Mississippi. He has 400 acres in peach-trees,
and is rapidly fitting his grounds for more. All over the
South they have terrible times with washouts on the hill-
sides. This is especially the case where they have the red
lands of the Southern States. Since the forests have been
cut away, and the grass turned under, many fields have been
so cut and gullied they are next to useless. Some of the
farmers are making a feeble attempt to fill them up with
straw and brush, thinking thus to stop the wash, and divert
the water into the proper roadways or channels ; but it is a
hard thing to stop when once started. About as soon as I
looked upon friend Day's gardening and fruit-growing I saw
he was running furrows around the hills, instead of up and
down or crosswise. He had adopted the slope of, I think,
one foot in twenty. This carries the water to the nearest
open ditch, and prevents it from going straight down hill
with a rush. If the descent is much faster than one foot in
twenty, it might cut and guile y again ; and if more nearly
level, it might break across the furrows. Of course, open
ditches must be provided, or some equivalent, after the
water has been carried about so far. It is somewhat com-
plicated and troublesome, I know, to run these ditches
around the hill. But I am sure he makes it pay. His rows
of fruit-trees run around the hills in the same way ; and in
plowing and cultivating, no furrows are made that may sug-
gest to the water (if you will pardon the expression) the idea
of cutting across and going straight down hill. This plan is
a sort of terracing, only the terraces are run on such a slant
as to carry the water. As this land is mostly a gravelly sub-
soil, no underdraining has yet been done.

Where underdraining is done on lowlands, in order to keep

TILE DRAINAGE. 131

them free from silt and mud I have constructed silt-basins.
Now, these silt-basins are a bad thing to plow around, and
they are a bad thing to plow over ; therefore we cover them
with a flat stone, having this stone down so low that the
plow will not reach it. The silt-basin is made of a piece of
large tile. The underdrain runs in at one side and out at
the other. As often as they become filled with mud or silt
' they must be cleaned out. So far, so good ; but if you plow
and cultivate right over them, how in the world are you go-
ing to find them out ? I am ashamed to say that we have
some three or four that we can not find, or have not found,
for several years. Hereafter I am going to have some land-
marks indicating their locality, and have it put down in a
book. There is on our land one place where it is under-
drained, that has been once taken up and found completely
filled with mud. This was on our creek-bottom ground.

" WET WEATHER " STREAMS.

What shall we do with streams that exist only in winter
time, or during exceedingly wet weather, and disappear as
soon as the ground dries off ? This is quite a problem here
in Medina Co.. O. One such low place is on one corner of
our grounds. The water goes on to our ground from a sluice-
way under a public highway. When I first came on the
place I put in it four-inch tile, thinking it would enable me
to plow and raise crops over it. As it did not answer I put
in six-inch tile. This did tolerably well for three or four
years. Finally we had a very wet season, and my raspber-
ries, strawberries, etc., were washed out so repeatedly that I
became disgusted. A year ago I bought enough twelve-inch
tile to go clear through where the stream crosses my land.
So far it has carried all the water, and my crops over it are
uninjured. As it is some of my very best land, I feel sure
that I shall in time get back the money I paid for the twelve-
inch tile. In such a place it is quite important that trash be
kept from filling up these large tile. At present we made a

132 TILE DRAINAGE.

large silt-basin at the side of the road where the water comes
from the culvert, or bridge, and goes into the tile, by placing
under the inlet to the tile a hogshead, or very large barrel.
All the trash that comes through under the bridge goes down
into this hogshead ; and when it is full we clean it out.
Floating stuff is kept out by means of a piece of heavy poul-
try-netting.

SANITARY TILING.

Much is being said of late about fevers being caused by
impure drinking-water. In view of this it behooves every
one of us to save the money we pay to doctors (so far as we
can) and expend it in buying and laying tiles. If you can not
do any more underdraining, be sure you have plenty of tiles
all around your house, your well, and your cistern. Then
watch the outlets. Guard them as you would guard your
reputation. Last summer, more than $100 was paid out for
doctors and medicine because of one spell of malarial fever ;
and I have decided to invest some more money in tiles in a
way that I hope may avert similar attacks in our family. A
few days ago I met a poor man who said his doctor-lull was
$280, and he was in very poor health at the time. He lives
in California, where doctors are expensive, especially as he
lives several miles from the town where the doctor is. I
could not help wondering whether he would not have been
almost as well if he had not been doctored quite so much. Of
course, we do not know about these things ; but this we do
know : Where drain tile will save the necessity of the doc-
tor's visits, it is wiser and better to spend the money in buy-
ing drain tile and cutting ditches.

HYDRAULIC ENGINEERS, ETC.

In regard to employing a competent engineer to lay out
your ground, as a general thing I believe the man who owns
the ground can do his own engineering. Friend Terry's plan
is, to pour some water in the ditch and see whether the wa-
ter will run. If it does not run to suit you, go at it again,

TILE DKAINAGE 133

and then pour in some more water. Do not lay a tile until
the water runs to suit you. I believe friend Terry speaks of
drawing water to the field in barrels when it happens there
is none ready to test the drain with. While I write I am
looking at a spot out of the window where our drains have
never worked quite satisfactorily. I told the men who were
digging the ditch not to lay any tiles until I got around.
Well, the work in the office was quite urgent at the time, and
I did not get around as soon as I expected to. They were so
sure they were doing it right, they put in the tiles and cover-
ed them up. I scolded, and talked about digging them out
again. But I let it go ; and we have had a wet place there
long after the rest of the field is dry. This has happened at
every heavy rain since the ditch was made.

This brings us to the matter of poor help. The idea that
" any fool can dig " is a big blunder. Friend Chamberlain is
exactly right about it. There are only a few people among
my acquaintances who can dig well with profit. I remember
once upon a time a " tramp " came along and wanted a
breakfast. I gave him his breakfast first, and he was to dig
until we were satisfied he had paid for it. Well, my impres-
sion is that his breakfast would not have been paid for at
the present time, had we kept him still digging. He could
not do any thing about the ditch without making more trou-
ble than he was worth. Strength is a grand thing in digging
ditches ; but without brains it amounts to little. In the first
place, you want a man who is willing to be taught. For sev-
eral years I had in my employ an old Englishman. He was
a splendid man for most kinds of work ; but when laying
tiles he would insist on having the bottom wide enough so he
could shovel the dirt out with a common barn shovel. Then
he would trim down the sides until they were smooth and
true. His ditch was very handsome, and would have been
just the thing if he were going to lay tiles a foot square.
But it is a great blunder to dig such a big trench for round
tiles only 2i or 3 inches in diameter. I had to give him up.

134 TILE DRAINAGE

He would not dig as I wanted him to, but insisted that it was
cheaper to have a ditch so wide that a man could walk back
and forth, and turn around with ease at the bottom. I found
a stout German who was so new from the old country that
he could hardly speak a word of English. But he would do
exactly as I said ; and when I showed him how, his every ef-
fort seemed to be to do just as I wished to have him do, in-
stead of following his own notions. His ditches worked all
right, and he soon learned to make very good speed. I would
exhort our readers to read again and again the instructions
on page 86, and all along there*. Don't give up and go back
to your old-fashioned ways. Keep on until you can do it all
exactly as friend Chamberlain directs, and you will very
soon have good reason to be glad you did so.

The one who succeeds in underdrawing must be more or
less of an enthusiast in the work ; and this seems to be true
of all industries, especially those of a rural nature. I was
pleased to hear J. M. Smith say, that, after his drains were
all made, he watched anxiously for a heavy shower, to see
if they would work as he had planned to have them do ; and
so anxious was he that he did not wait for the rain to be
over, but with gum boots, rubber coat, and umbrella, he
went out through the rain to one of the silt-basins, where a
large number of drains were centered, and he was delighted

* Since the above was in type I sent a big" strong1 man who has done
ditching-, and thought he knew how, out into the lot to dig- where I had
previously drawn a string* for him to go by. It was two or three hours
before I got ready to come around and inspect. I found him making
but little progress in trying to dig the hard clay with a pick. I took the
spade given him at first, and taught him to throw out the dirt a full
spade depth almost as fast as he could handle his spade, and this, too,
in ground so hard he thought he would have to use the pick. Had he
tried to push his tile-spade into the ground with both edges in the clay
it would have been impossible, even if he had put his full weight (300
Ibs.) on top of the spade; but by putting only one edge in the clay,
leaving one edge clear, he managed it easily, and the dirt dropped from
his spade without a bit of trouble; whereas, by the old plan the clay
would stick to the spade so as to have to be cleared off with a trowel
almost every time. Why, since I have learned how to do it as friend
Chamberlain does, I find it just fun to dig in the hardest ground, and
the labor isn't severe and exhausting either.

TILEJ)RA1NAGE. 135

to see every one of them pouring its proper proportion of
water into the basin, while the main outlet leading from this,
carried the water away. Each line of tile seemed to be fully
adequate to take the water, even from the heaviest shower.
After you have worked and planned, perhaps many months,
on a piece of engineering like this, what a satisfaction it is to
see it a success in every particular ! Friend Smith had a
problem on his hands of more than usual difficulty, for his
field of forty acres is very nearly level, and it is also but
a very little higher than the water in the lake which is
all around him ; therefore his drains must be laid very ac-
curately, on an even, true grade ; for, as there was but little
fall to be secured, there could be no very great variation in
the way of ups and downs.

DEPTH OF TILE, ETC.

I quite agree with what friend Chamberlain says in regard
to the depth that tile should be laid. In our locality most of the
upland is a stiff retentive clay. If you dig a hole in the ground
any where, it will fill with rain water, and the water will stand
there a long time. On account of this, I think I have sever-
al times placed our tiles too deep to give the best results. It
has been suggested that, after a year or two, the water would
find its way down to them. This may be ; but, all things
considered, 1 think I should prefer them not lower than 2£
feet from the surface, as a rule. In order to get an even
grade, I would, of course, go down in places, 3 or even 3-£
feet ; and in other places we might lay them as near as 2 feet
from the surface. In my recent travels through Washing-
ton, Oregon, California, and Arizona, in going among the
fanners and fruit-raisers I have been greatly astonished to
find how little the teachings of one locality would answer for
another ; and not only is this true, but circumstances are so
different, sometimes, that, in traveling only thirty or forty
miles, their methods must be greatly modified and changed.
In the great West, underdraining is, as a rule, almost uii-

136 TILE DRAINAGE

known. The desert soils where irrigation is practiced, are
so loose and porous that the ground is really underdrained by
nature. In fact, in many places they have great trouble in
conveying the water in irrigating- ditches, the soil being so
porous that the greater part of the water is lost before it goes
to where it is wanted. In fact, at Riverside they are ce-
menting the bottom and sides of the irrigating-canals, and
this is being done very largely. Now, in such soils, and
especially where there has never been a surplus of rains,
except for a brief period in the winter time, underdraining
would seldom pay expenses. And this leads us to a method
of getting an outlet for underdrains that has already been
touched upon. In the vicinity of Mammoth Cave, water
never stands in hollows or depressions. In fact, in passing
along on the railroad we see hollows between the hills, with-
out number, and no visible outlet anywhere. After very
heavy showers the water will sometimes stand in these
basins for a few hours ; but it usually goes down through the
porous soil and through the porous rock almost as rapidly
as it collects in the basin between the hills. In some
cases I saw considerable streams go down into such a hollow
in the hills, and disappear in a sink-hole that resembled a
well without any bottom to it. The water had probably
found a passageway into some of the caverns that underlie
that large tract of that Mammoth Cave country. Now, in
localities where there are no caves, there are frequently por-
ous strata of gravel that act in much the same way ; and in
such places an outlet for underdrains may be found by simply
digging a well down into this gravel. Even here in our hard
clay subsoil, with soapstone underlying, we drilled a well
that we found, by actual test, would take quite a stream of
water, when it was once turned into it, immediately out of
sight. A good many times it may be worth while to experi-
ment in this way, where it is desirable to get an outlet for
surplus water. On page 104 we are told how friend Terry

TILE DRAINAGE. j37

ran the water into a gravel-bank, and thus saved the expense
of making a deep cut.

OTTLETS THAT ARE LIABLE TO P>E FLOODED BY OVER-
FLOWS, ETC.

There is one spot on our creek-bottom grounds where we
get an excellent outlet for standing water by running a tile
into the deep cut before spoken of. Now, this works all
right while the water is low in Champion Brook ; but when
it rises nearly to the top of its banks during a freshet, the
same tile that had been taking the water away lets it back
on to the low land, and makes a pond. To remedy this we
have at the outlet a check-valve made of wood, with leather
hinges. Ordinarily the valve stands a little open to let the
water out. When the water rises, however, it strikes this
hinged door, or valve, and closes it. Of course, this stops the
water for a time from getting out of the underdrain ; but
when the creek goes down it lets the water out as usual.
We should prefer, of course, an outlet that would never be
covered and subject to back-water ; but under the circum-
stances the valve is better than to have the tile permanently
open. A valve to open and close by hand has been suggest-
ed ; but as this requires the owner to go out in the rain to
manipulate his valves, and would often fail to receive the
attention it should have, we consider the automatic valve
preferable.

DANGER FROM STANDING WATER.

Perhaps sufficient has been already said in regard to the
damage a little surplus water may do if allowed to stand for
only a few days But I wish to mention a circumstance of
my boyhood. We had a very thrifty young cherry-tree, one
of the very finest I have ever seen, standing not very far
from the house. Before we had our underdrains properly
fixed, a wooden spout carried the surplus from the kitchen
out to an open ditch. During a wet time in the spring this
wooden spout became disarranged so the water for two or

138 TILE DRAINAGE.

three days poured down near the cherry-tree mentioned. In
fact, it had made a little puddle around the tree before any-
body had noticed it. For fear it might receive injury, an
open ditch was made out to the main ditch, to take the sur-
plus water away. But we were too late. The tree, although
it had commenced to put out its buds with wonderful thrift
and luxuriance, came to a standstill and died. It seems to
me the water could not have been around the roots more
than three days. I have seen evergreens on our present
ground killed in the same way. They were planted through
a depression, where water stood occasionally during very
heavy rains. A succession of heavy rains kept this place full
of water for perhaps 48 hours. Then a ditch was dug, and
some tiles put in ; but it was too late— they were dead— died
from drowning, i. e., being held underwater longer than
they could stand it. This brings me to one of the main
points in regard to surplus drains. On our rich market-gar-
den ground, where we have put on manure year after year at
the rate of forty or fifty loads per acre, the ground has not
only become very rich, but very soft, and easily worked.
Well, in gathering the crops we are sometimes obliged to go
over the ground when it is pretty wet. It gets tramped
down hard, to the great detriment of the growing crops.
Our plant-beds, however, are never tramped on. As they
are only six feet wide, one can reach from the edges to the
center of the bed, and the boys are forbidden to ever set foot
on this thoroughly tilled and heavily fertilized soil. The
consequence is, we get crop after crop from these beds, with
very little digging up more than is required by the rake.
The beds being only six feet wide, and paths between them,
they make the most perfect surplus drainage. In fact, the
beds are raised perhaps four inches higher than the path.
This, of course, makes them dry out quicker during a very
dry time. But here comes in our big windmill, with its 1600-
barrel tank. Hydrants are located among the plant-beds
about 100 feet apart, so 50 feet of hose, with the sprinkler at-

TILE DRAINAGE 139

tached, enables us to see that the crops on our beds never
suffer from a lack of water ; neither is the soil ever tramped
down so as to prevent the roots from being able to " breathe1'
through the loose soil. It may be that this is not exactly
the way to express it, but you all know what I mean. I think
one reason why we can not compete in fruit-growing with
California is because we have not the loose porous soil they
have. We can, however, have it more loose and porous than it
now is by keeping it at all seasons of the year free from stand-
ing surplus water. In our locality I have often seen a field
plowed, harrowed, rolled, and cultivated until it was light,
loose, and fine, and in just the trim for putting in the seeds.
Very likely it had been just rolled the last time preparatory
to running over the seed-drill. Now, if, at this stage of pro-
ceedings, a tremendous rain sets in, so that the whole field is
made like mud, it will settle down so hard and compact that
the chances for a good crop are just about ruined. The only
real remedy for such a state of affairs is to wait until the
ground is dry enough to plow and harrow and roll again.*
If, however, the field had been thoroughly underdrained , the
rain does comparatively little damage. With surface drains,
such as I have mentioned, the damage is still less ; but the
owner must keep off the ground with his team and tools un-
til it is sufficiently dry to work.

TOOLS FOR UNDERDKAIN1NG.

Our friends may have noticed that some of the tools on
page 82 have not been described or mentioned. This is be-
cause some of them are of my own selection. Fig. 2 is a
Dutch hoe. One of my men, fresh from the old country,
brought such a one along with him. The others laughed at
it, and said Fig. 8 was a good deal better, and answered every
purpose. When it came to filling up the drains, however,
our German friend got his hoe (Fig. 2) and soon convinced

*The delay, especially if it keep on raining, may be about as disas-
trous as to go ahead.

140 TILE DRAINAGE

them that, in his hands at least, it was a wonderful tool, and
therefore the boys took a liking to it for many other purposes.
It will dig up ground many times in a way to make it quite a
substitute for spading, and do it easier and quicker. Fig. 5
is a cleaning-out spade, and is very handy in many emergen-
cies. Fig. 3 is used as a substitute for Fig. 1. It is mostly
used for cleaning out the bottom, and grading it for laying
small tile, and I like it rather better than Fig. 1. The ad-
justable joint in Fig. 1 is a good thing if it were not so apt
to be loose and rattling. It always makes me nervous when
any tool is the least bit loose on the handle.

On page 91 we have illustrated and described a three-tined
ditching-spade. I am ashamed, however, to think that our
artist did not succeed in making a better-looking cut of it —
like Fig. 6, on page 82, for instance. Well, after what friend
Chamberlain had written on page 92, 1 purchased one of
these spades and sent it to him to try. Here is his reply in
regard to it :

SKELETON SPADE.

Mr. A. I. Root— Dear Sir:-— I express you the skeleton spade
to-day. On the whole the regular ditching-spade seems to me
better than the skeleton for my land. This particular one has too
narrow a blade, except for bottom course, and the shoulder is so
narrow that the foot slips; also, the ribs, or tines, bend top easily.
They were bent when it came, and I straightened them with care,
but they are not stiff enough, even for a skilled ditcher, in our
soil. I would not, however, decide wholly against them until I
try the wider and shorter size in a very wet and sticky time and
place. Thus far my men and I like the solid or regular spades
best; but in Iowa soils the skeleton spade is just the thing.

Hudson, O., March 15, 1892. W. I. CHAMBERLAIN.

We have used the spade a little, but not very much, how-
ever. But I am inclined to think that, where it is properly
made, as friend Chamberlain suggests, i. e., made for our
soil, it will clear better and cut easier than the one figured
on page 82, No. 6. I should be glad to hear from friends who
have used the three-tined spade. It seems to me the idea is
a progressive one.

TILE DRAINAGE. 141

CONCLUSION.

Before closing I wish to say that I have visited friend
Chamberlain at different times during his work. lie is not
very far from friend Terry, so when I go to see one I take in
the other also. I have seen that beautiful orchard, and no-
ticed the great difference in the trees that are on the tile-
drained land, and I also saw that Baldwin apple-tree, page
49, just before they were going to gather the fruit. It was
a sight, Ftell you, and I never in my life before saw such a
lot of beautiful, round, smooth, perfect apples as I saw at
friend Chamberlain's. One of the most interesting sights to
me was the item mentioned and illustrated on pp. 44, 45, 46 ;
namely, the idea that tiles helped the crops but hindered the
weeds. When I was first told it, I felt like making light of
friend Chamberlain's enthusiasm, which I thought then was
running away with him. He took us first where we saw a
heavy growth of clover and timothy, with no weeds or plan-
tain. Then we looked at the ground that had not yet been
tiled, and I soon took in the state of affairs. There are cer-
tain kinds of weeds that we expect to see appear on poor,
hard, dry ground. In fact, they are seldom seen elsewhere.
There is but little grass or clover or any thing else on such
ground, and I had always supposed that the rank, hardy
weeds had killed out the grass. If I am correct, however,
the real state of affairs is this : The excessive wetness first
kills out the timothy and clover in the same way it killed
that cherry-tree and our evergreens. When the timothy and
clover are out of the way, the hardy weeds that can stand
the wet come in and cover the ground ; therefore we have a
rational and reasonable explanation given for the fact that
we get rid of weeds by thoroughly underdraining our land.

This book, like the various books written by friend Terry,
is not theory or book farming, like some books that have been
written on agriculture, for it is only a description of what I
have seen repeatedly, and what you too, dear reader, may see

142 TILE DKAINAGE.

for yourself if you feel like taking the time to visit Terry
and Chamberlain. Although they are busy men, and their
time is exceedingly valuable, I think I am right in saying
they are ready to sacrifice almost any thing, where they can
be of use in making themselves really helpful to the average
farmer. In fact, they both have been giving their lives to
this work, and I suppose they expect to give them to the end.
I do not mean by this to say they give their time right along
for nothing, and without pay. If we American people allow-
ed them to do so we should be ashamed of ourselves.

If this little book has been the means of giving you more
faith in and love for farming ; more faith in and love for
your fellow-men, and more faith in and love for the great
Creator, who gave us our land with all its grand and glorious
possibilities, then shall we be satisfied, and feel that our
labor has not been in vain.

Your friend, A. I. BOOT.

Medina, O., March 17, 1892.

TILE DRAINAGE. 413

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTORY.

The scope of the book.— A primer in size and conciseness.— On tile
drainage, not all drainage nor all related subjects. — Drainage a
progressive art. — Much of the past now discarded. Tiles have
superseded all other materials for underdrainage. — Round tiles
best.— Author's practical experience and observation.— Tiling
not so difficult as sometimes represented, yet needs an engineer
for difficult problems. Pages 3 — 6.

CHAPTER II.— WHY DO WE TILE-DRAIN LAND? THE THEORY.

Do all lands need tiling?— Horace Greeley's dictum.— Underdrain-
age better than surface drainage. — What is " surplus water "?
Upon and in the soil.— Roots need air.— Capillary attraction in
lamp-wicks, sponges, soils.— Air-spaces in soils.— Capillary wa-
ter and hydrostatic water. — Porosity and slight filtration of
ik loose " soils.— Typhoid germs.— Artesian wells.— Capillarity
and hydrostatic pressure oppose each other.— Scientific reasons
for removing surplus moisture down through the soil: 1. Fits
fields for less crooked tillage; 2. Removes surplus in as well as
on the soil; 3. Saves loss of fertility; 4. Even adds fertility; 5.
Helps warm the soil; 6. Lengthens the season of tillage and
growth of crops; 7. Increases extent of "root pasturage;" 8.
Helps disintegrate and " fine " the soil; 9. Diminishes " winter-
killing " of wheat, clover, etc., by *' hoar frost " or " stool ice ; "
10. Diminishes effects of drouth; 11. Often diminishes flood
damage; 12. Improves the healthfulness of drained regions.
Pages 7 — 28

CHAPTER III.— WHY DO WE TILE -DRAIN LAND? THE FACTS.
DOES IT PAY?

Author's first cobble-stone drain.— First tile drain.— First thor-
ough tile drainage less than $23 per acre, and first wheat crop
$46 per acre.— Naturally gave the " tile-fever."— Actual effects
of tiling: 1. Upon orchards; "died of wet feet;" 2. Upon
wheat; 3. Upon clover; 4. Upon value of manures and fertiliz-
ers; 5. Upon permanence of fertilizers and crops, and upon
weeds; 6. Upon barn room; 7. Upon the fruitage of apple-trees.
Pages 28 — 50

CHAPTER IV.— DOES TILLAGE PAY BETTER THAN GRAZING?

Not exclusive tillage.— Combined with stock -keeping.— Agricultu-
ral development of the human race.— The savage state.— The
nomadic.— The agricultural.— The horticultural.— Population
of Ohio per square mile.— Of Belgium.— Exclusive grazing in
Ohio.— Tillage with stock-raising.— The tiling of clayey soils a
necessary basis for tillage and rotation.— Manures, fertilizers,
clover, rotation, and good tillage must follow to win success.—

144 TILE DRAINAGE.

Brief history of drainage on author's farm.— Effects of tiling,
tillage, tree-planting, etc., upon the rainfall.— Soils that most

need drainage, thorough and partial. Pages 51 — 62

CHAPTP;R V.— WHERE TO DRAIN.

General localities and kinds of soil.— Cat-swamps, swales, etc.—
Location of mains and laterals in a system of thorough drain-
age.—Mains follow but somewhat straighten the dry brooks and
swales.— The direction of laterals. Two rules. — Criticisms of.—
Discussion of.— Illustrations, Figs. 18, 19. — How the surface-
water seeks the drains.— Dead-furrows?— Rapidity of absorp-
tion and filtration. Pages 62 — 71

CHAPTER VI.— WHEN TO DRAIN.

1. When can we afford it? Debt for it? Sell part to tile the
rest? Gradually, year by year, and economically. — 2. Best sea-
sons of the year. Tiling in winter, late fall, and early spring.—
Advantages of.— Preparation for.— Details of in next chapter.

Pages 71 — 74

CHAPTER VII.— How TO DRAIN; THE TILES.

The tiles.— Shape.— Material, and hardness of burning. — Porosi-
ty.—Experiments concerning.— The water enters drains how
and where? — Hard tiles more surely durable.— " T joints" and
44 Y joints" needed for hard tiles.— Better for any kind of tiles.

Pages 74 — 78

CHAPTER VIII.— How TO DRAIN; THE TOOLS.

Hand tools or machines? — Field trials of horse and steam power
machines. Greatly hindered by stones in drift soils or bowlder
clay.— Not suited to winter work.— But winter the time of
leisure for drainage.— Shall the farmer buy a digging-machine
as he does a mower or twine-binder?— Shall he hire one? — Hand
tools; spades; scoops, or cr umbers; groove-cutters; span-level;
filling hook and fork; crowbar, pick, shovel, etc. Pages.78 — 84
CHAPTER IX. — How TO DRAIN ; THE MANIPULATIONS.

Locating the drains. — Wet-weathei observations. — Drainage en-
gineer; grade-stakes, map, etc. — Winter drainage. — Beginning
to dig.— Where? How?— The main first laid.—" T " and " Y "
joints, when laid. The laterals.— The digging.— Skill by prac-
tice and thought. — *" Burying" the spade. — Keeping one side-
edge in sight.— How to sink the spade; and preserve the true
grade; and use the " crumber."— The foot-iron. — Placing the
earth so as to fill in easily. — The curved motion in lifting the
earth.— Centrifugal force helps keep the earth on the spade.—
Skill or knack required to dig a clean, true ditch rapidly, easi-
ly, and well. — The three-tined ditching-spade for stoneless,
mucky, sticky soils.— Establishing close grades.— "Sighting-
stakes" and '"boning rods. "Fig. 25.— Cutting the groove for the
tiles, Fig. 26.— Depressions in the drains endanger stoppage.—
Use of the span-level in getting grade.— Of soil -water. —Of wa-

TILE DRAINAGE. 145

ter brought on purpose.— The work to endure for centuries, if
well done; for about two years if not well done. — Laying the
tiles.— Covering them.— Tramping the earth.— How the water
enters. — The upper ends of laterals. — Protecting outlets from
land and water vermin, reptiles, etc., by screens.- -Have as few

outlets as possible. Pages 84 — 100

CHAPTER X. — How TO DRAIN; SPECIAL PROBLEMS.

Map of thorough drainage of 36-acre field on author's farm, Hud-
son, O.— Handling flood- water from land further up the slope.—
Ponds as balance-wheels. — " Catch-water pond " and " catch-
basin."— ''Contour lines."— Study of the map.— Drainage into
reservoirs sunk into gravel subsoil.— By mains running into
gravel-knolls, and with no outlets. — Protecting joints from en-
trance of quicksand or '' silt."— Establishing grade by line in-
stead of boning-rods and sight-stakes.— Quicksand-pockets;
boards to prevent the tiles from sinking; silt-basins, or man-
holes.— Boards under tiles at outlets.— Tiles rather than stones,
even where stones are plentiful and of good shape.— But if you
use stones, lay a clear channel for water. — Roots in tile drains.—
Not unless the tiles are wet when the soil is dry.— Former belief
as to porosity of tiles changed by later careful experiment.—
Roots of aquatic trees.— Conveying spring or swamp water
through dry soil.— Slop-drains, water-closet and sink-drains,
etc. — Drainage of low lands by steam or wind engine pumping.
—Letter quoted.— Scarcely within the scope of this book.
Pages «. 100 — 112

CHAPTER XI.— ESTIMATES; SIZES OF TILES; COST OF DRAINING.

Size of tiles to drain given areas. Nature of the problem.— Sud-
den and heavy rainfalls.— English estimates too small for the
United States.— The " factor of safety."— Actual rainfalls on
author's farm.— Sizes of tile that " handled " it without surface-
wash.— Author's rule for size. Rule by C. G. Elliott, in his
" Practical Farm Drainage."— Rule by Geo. E. Warring, Jr., in
his "Draining for Profit and Draining for Health."— Tables by
French and by Klippart in their books on drainage.— Present
tendency toward large tiles wise. — Author's conclusions. — Cost
of drainage if done economically.— Actual cost itemized for 15
acres.— Proper depth in tenacious clays in moderate climate.—

In more porous soi Is and colder climates. . . Pages 112 — 120

CHAPTER XII. CONCLUSION.

Good tillage should follow tile drainage.— The author an advocate
of drainage, but not from personal, pecuniary interests. — Has
tried to give theories correctly and facts truthfully. Personal
letters not practicable. — Where and how to buy tiles. — Begin
the. work of tiling gradually and economically (if your land
needs it), and be guided by observed results. How to find what
is in this book, or what it has on any particular point. Test the
book's advice by trial. Pages 120 — 122

146 TILE DRAINAGE.

INDEX.

Air-spaces in soil 9, 10, 22

Attraction, capillary 8, 10

A rtesian wells 12

Agriculture, development of among- men 51, £2, 53

supports a greater population than grazing 53, 54, 55

Belgium, population to the square mile 53

Boning-rods, or sighting-stakes 92, 93

Catch-basin . 102

Country Gentleman, quotations from 6, 96, 118, 112, 117, 118

Capillary attraction in soil, sponges, etc 8, 9, 22, 23

*• water 10

Cook. Prof. A. J 1

Camp, H. B 110

Clover saved from winter-killing by tile drainage 22

Drainage— tiles superseding other material 1

a progressive science 1

down through the soil, why better than off from it... . 13, 14, 15

41 aids in pulverizing it 21

" prevents winter-killing 22, 23

diminishes the effects of drouth 25

(sometimes) diminishes the suddenness and violence of floods 26

improves the health of a region 27, 135

author's first experiment in cobble drainage 29

tile " 29,30

effects of on orchard trees 31—38

wheat 38, 39

clover ... 39-41

value of manures and fertilizers 43

permanence of timothy seeding and on weeds. 46

barn room 47, 48

tools for (see Tools) 78—81

of bogs ] 03, 104

by steam pumping instead of gravity outlet Ill, 112

cost of— estimates 117—119

Drains (tile), location and direction of mains 63

laterals 64

straight down the slope or not 64 — 70

dead-furrows in connection therewith ? 68

rapidity of absorption and nitration by soil into .70, 71

when to lay them (the question of affording them) 71, 72

44 " (best season of the year) 72, 73, 74

construction of— the tiles, material, shape, hardness, etc 74

porosity of tiles; transmission of water 74—76

weight of tiles. . . 77

beginning the digging (where?) method of digging 85

establishing close grades 92, 93, 106

cutting the groove and laying- the tiles 94

protecting the outlets 96

depth of 108, 117, 119,135

distance apart 117, 120

without open outlets 104

roots in 108, 109

TILE DKAINAGE. 147

Debt with relation to drainage 5, 120

Dry-earth mulch 33,24

Drouth diminished by drainage 25

Engineer, employment of in drainage 5, 92, 133

Evaporation, a slow and cooling process 17, 18

Emerson, R. W., quotations from 1, 21

Elliott, C. G 115

Fertility preserved and increased by tile drainage 15, 16

Frost action, effect 011 soils and crops 2'?, 23

French on drainage, quoted 21, 98, 99, 116

Greeley , Horace, his dictum about drainage 7

Growing season lengthened by drainage 19

History of drainage— why not given here 4

Hydrostatic water 10, 11, 23

Hoar frost explained 22, 23

Heat makes the air hold more moisture 24

Heal tli improved by drainage. . 27, 28, 132

Hall,W.J3 1U8

Johnston, John, reference to 5

Johnson, B. F., views on drainage 30

Joints of tiles covered to exclude silt 105

Killmer, Charles S Ill

Klippart on drainage 116

Leveling for drains 84, 85, 92, 93, 94, 106

Laterals, upper ends of 96

direction of 64

ending in open ditches 107

Main drains, location of 63

Motley, J. L., reference to 4

Map of thorough drainage 101

Mulch of dry earth retards evaporation 23, 24

Main drains, direction of 63

ending in gravel beds with no outlet 104

National Stockman referred to 6, 103

Ohio— The Ohio Farmer, references to 6, 105, 121

meteorological bureau 15

population to the square mile 53

exclusive dairying in 53, 54

mixed or diversified farming in 54, 55

Outlets, protecting from vermin 96

ending in gravel subsoil 1U4, 13tf

Primer, this book designed to be in size arid conciseness 3

Pulverization helped by tile drainage 21,22

Paper to cover tile-joints . . . . 1U5

Personal letters of advice . 121

Population to the square mile as affected by tiling and tillage 55, 57 •'

Quicksand 106 v

Rain fall on author's farm 15,16

increased by drainage, tillage, and tree-planting 57, 58

Rural New-Yorker, reference to 6

Roots of plants need air 9, 10

grow deeper in tiled soil 19,20

obstructing drains 108—1 11

148 TILE DEAINAGE.

Saturation, drainage lowers the line of 33, 23

Swan, Robert J., reference to 5

Sisson Brothers, reference to 5

Stockman, National, reference to 6, 103

Surplus water, how to remove and why 7, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18—31, 137

Soi Is, what onas need tiling 7,59,63,136

temperature of affected by tiling 16, 17

Sighting-stakes, or boning-rods 93,93

Superphosphates more effective on tiled land 55

Scope of the book 1—5

Silt or sand working into tile drains 105

Silt-basins 106, 107

Storrs & Harrison Co. referred to 106

Stones, use of for drains. . 5, 39, 107, 108

Sizes of tiles, rules for determining size needed, and given 113—116

Thawing, a cooling process 17

Tile drainage— see Drainage.

Tiles superseding other material for drains ..3,4

44 round, superseding other shapes 4

where to buy.. 131

*' durability of and material for 4, 74—77

proper sizes for various areas 113—116

Tiling and tilling not to be confounded . 6

what soils need it 7

Tillage of surface to retain moisture 23—35

** does it pay better than grazing? 51

Terry, T. B., references to 1, 5,31, 60, 104

Typhoid germs saturating soil and polluting spring water 11, 12

Trowbridge, W . 105

Tools for drainage— hand or machine? 78

Trials of machines 78, 79

Stones interfere with work 78, 79

Mud and frost interfere with 79-81

Common plow for deep farrow the only team-machine used. ... 79

The hand-tools, spade for first course 81

Bottoming-spade ....81, 139, 140

Scoop for first course — 81

The bottoming-scoop, or groove-cutter 82

The span-level 83

The tile-hook 83

The four-tined filling-hook 83,83

The three-tiiied ditching-spade 91

The foot-iron 89

Shovel, crowbar, pick, iron rake, etc 84

Sighting-stakes and boning-rods 93

Townshend, Prof . N. S 110

Vermin in drains 96—99

Velocity of flow in tile drains affected by grade and friction . . 113

Wet feet, plants and trees dying of 8

Winter- killing of wheat, clover, etc., diminished by drainage 32

" explained 32,23

Wind, why more drying than a still air 24

Western Reserve, much of the soil benefited by drainage 61, 62

" author's experience with its soils 62

Waring, G. E 106, 115

R B C OF

FOR FARMERS, VILLAGE PEOPLE,
AND SMALL GROWERS.

A BOOK FOR BEGINNERS.

1?.. B.

The above book, by Terry, with some additional remarks by
A. I. Root, is, at the present time, creating an enthusiasm and
interest in strawberry culture never known before. It is a book
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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

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—Selection and Care of Seed.— Cutting Seed to One Eye.— Planting- Po-
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—AUTHOR OF THE—

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NOW IN PRESS.

—A TREATISE ON-

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WITH AN APPENDIX BY A. I. ROOT, ADAPTING IT TO
TOMATO CULTURE IN THE NORTH AS
AS IN THE SOUTH.

This little book, which we expect to have about the size of the
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industry that has been steadily growing for some years past;
namely, tomato-growing in the South, to supply the Northern
markets. The little book, which is to be very fully illustrated,
gives us some pleasant glimpses of the possibilities and probabili-
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A. I. /?OOT, - - MEDINA, O.

THE DRAINAGE JOURNAL,

A 48-PAGE MONTHLY,

— DEVOTED TO-

FARM DRAINAGE, WHEN AND HOW TO DRAIN,

ROAD IMPROVEMENT, AND MANUFACTURE

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RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE
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ROT

CD LIBRARY

EJAN7 1974

JCD UBRARY

JUN 1 u

^"^ L/BRAR/

SEP 2 7 1979
OC1 9 HtC

LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS

Book Slip-50m-5,'70 (N6725s8) 458- -A-31/5

I

N9 714040

Chamberlain,* W.I.
Tile drainage.

S621
C5

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS

3 1175 00368 5792