202 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Til., and to sug:g^est a i)lan of drainage adapted to their peculiar 

 nature. It may be said thai these lands include an area of 10,000 

 acres within 12 miles of St. Louis, are exceediiiirly fertile, hut have 

 heen used so far mainly for the production of wheat. 'J'he rotation 

 of crops, now a recognized necessity, has been prevented because of 

 the heavy condition of the land resulting from its lack of drainage 

 and the imperviousness of the soil to the pas.sage of water. The 

 owner of one of these farms proposes to drain 200 acres with tile to 

 ascertain bv actual field test whether the land may not be so drained 

 as to be suitable for the jDlanting and production of all field crops. 



Similar questions arise concerning the cotton lands of the Yazoo 

 Delta in ^lississippi. This Office has made careful surveys and plans 

 for the drainage of a cotton })lantation of 2,000 acres, and will in 

 cooperation with the owners put in experimental drains for testing 

 their value in that kind of soil. Drainage has been practiced in the 

 sugar-cane fields of Louisiana for a hundred years inider great diffi- 

 culties. 



The requirements there are quite distinct from many other local- 

 ities, the rainfall being 50 or more inches and not well distributed, so 

 that provision must be made for carrying large volumes of water 

 from the lands. The present plan for doing this is deep open ditches, 

 which are placed at frequent intervals through the fields. Tile drain- 

 age has been tested to some extent, but has not been satisfactory for 

 what seemed to be ver}'^ good and sufficient reasons. It is believed 

 that underdrains may be used in supplementing the present drains in 

 such a way that the number of expensive and inconvenient open 

 ditches may be greatly reduced. We are securing all available data 

 in order to become fully conversant with the existing conditions and 

 requirements, as well as with the defects found in drains of all kinds, 

 and hope to secure some cooperation of the planters for securing tlifi 

 better conditions before mentioned. 



In reviewing the agricultural water problems affecting southern 

 lands mention should be made of the erosion of the hill lands, which 

 is a constant menace to the stability of the farms and a continual 

 source of depletion of their fertility. The experiment, made by this 

 Office in Jackson County, Ga., three years ago, for preventing this 

 washing by the use of underdrains placed across the slope in such a 

 w^ay as to pass through points where seepage from upper portions 

 of the soil cropped out, has so far been successful, and the land 

 which was previously abandoned and filled with gullies and washes 

 is now cultivated, without terrace or ditch, and has produced three 

 crops of grain, which have nuich more than paid the expense of the 

 improvement. Other methods of protection, particularly the various 

 forms of terracing used, have been investigated closely, and the 

 adaptation of the various forms in use to different slopes and condi- 



