DRAINAGE INVERTTGATIONS. 201 



and profitable, are now abandoned. These have great natural fertil 

 ity. and being contiguous to valuai)le markets, merit special attention 

 and preparation of careful estimates and plans looking to the perma- 

 nent protection and improvement of these abandoned alluvial tracts. 



In the more intensive cultivation of land which follows the im- 

 provement of natural channels and the construction of artificial ones 

 where these are inadequate, underdrainage is invarialily found useful 

 and often necessary if farming operations are to be carried on at a 

 profit. While much of this work has been done successfully in various 

 parts of the country, and its value is fully understood as far as the 

 theory is concerned, many problems arise where the efficiency of pro- 

 posed drains is questioned and where the best method of construction 

 is not understood. The continual improvement of farms in the Middle 

 West and the South, looking to the utilization of every foot of fertile 

 soil, is directing the attention of owners to this method of increasing 

 the production of land. The difficulties encountered call not only 

 for some skill in agricultural engineering, but for knowledge, and in 

 some cases experimentation, pertaining to the drainage properties of 

 soils. 



As examples of such difficulties may be mentioned the fertile allu- 

 vial lands in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and the Dakotas, 

 Avhero it is now conceded that more complete drainage than that 

 offered by surface drainage is desirable, and the question is raised 

 regarding the probable efficiency of tile underdrains in that soil and 

 in a climate where the ground freezes to a depth of 6 feet. Nothing 

 settles a disputed point in farming so effectually as an experiment, 

 and it is proposed to make such an experiment on the State farm at 

 Crookston. Alinn., where this Office will make the plans for a system 

 of underdrainage for not less than 100 acres and direct a series of 

 observations from which the effect of drains placed at different depths 

 and distances apart may be learned and the results made public for 

 the benefit of owners of similar lands. The same Avill be done on the 

 State experiment station farm at Fargo, N. Dak., at which place some 

 trials of tile by farmers have been attended by little benefit, and the 

 f^entiment has gone forth that for that soil and climate tile underdrain- 

 age is of doubtful value. Like (juestions have been raised by owners of 

 lands in the Neosho Valley of Kansas, where the river bottom lands 

 are supposed to be too close, waxy, and impervious to water to be 

 benefited by the underdrains. Experimental field drains have been 

 laid out by direction of this Office near Oswego, Ivans., a ])art of 

 which were constructed in tlie fall of 1905, and they are already 

 reported as operating in such a way as to greatly benefit and facili- 

 tate the cultivation of the land. 



This Office was called upon to advise regarding the probable eil'ect 

 of tile upon lands in the river-bottom country in Madison County, 



