178 STATE BOAKH OF AGRICULTURE. 



it is along these streams and thu branches radiatin;; from tliem, and emptying 

 tlioir waters into them, that most of tlie swamps of tlic county are situated. 

 This formation renders the task of draining an easy one, it being generally 

 only necessary to provide a channel through tlie swamp to be drained and to 

 follow the natural tlow of the water, deepening tlie channel until it intersects 

 some one of these streams sufficient to carry away the waters to one or the other 

 of these rivers. 



The county drain system went into operation in this county in 1870, and the 

 amount done in each year since is as follows : 



1870—7.291 rods, or 23^ miles of drain, at $1,306 per rod $9,527 80 



1871— 9,457 rods, or 29f miles, at $1,307 per rod 12,914 05 



1872— 8,111 rods, or 25^ miles, at $1,025^ per rod 8,309 35 



1873—3,125 rods, or 9 miles 269 rods, at $1,352 per rod 4,328 45 



1874—10,708 rods, or 33 miles 148 rods, at $0,822 per rod 9,804 27 



1875—10,414 rods, or 32 miles 174 rods, at $1,128 per rod 12,761 91 



1876—20,641 rods, or 64 miles 161 rods, at $0,803 per rod 16,580 33 



1877—2,834 rods, or 8 miles 274 rods at $0,637 per rod 2,504 24 



1878—27,138 rods, or 74 miles 225 rods, at $0,399^ per rod 10,838 32 



1879—7,056 rods, or 22 miles and 16 rods, at $0.47 per rod 3,298 80 



Making a total of 324 miles 29 rods of drain, costing a total of. $89,868 02 



Some of these drains are twice counted in making this total, having been 

 reconstructed and deepened; but there is at least 250 miles of drain in the 

 county which has been dug under the county drain system. Added to this, 

 there is a large amount of township drain in tlie county — how much I have no 

 means of forming an intelligent opinion. 



These drains are sufficient to draw the surface water from nearly all the 

 swamp lands in the county — that is, there are but few swamps of any considera- 

 ble size left in the county upon which the water will stand upon the surface, 

 except in very wet weather, when there is more water than the ditches can 

 carry. Some small detached swamps are not drained at all ; but I do not know 

 of a large swamp anywhere in the county which is entirely undrained, and 

 most of the additional work required to be done by the county drain commis- 

 sioner in the future will be in adding a few branches to and deepening the 

 ditches already done. The deepening is the important and expensive job, and 

 although nearly all the swamp land is now drained sufficiently to prevent water 

 standing upon the surface, there is but a very small portion drained deep 

 enough to enable under drains, put down the necessary depth, to be discharged 

 into them. This deepening will be done gradually; and as the necessity for it 

 appears in each case, or as the owners desire to put in the tile drains which are 

 to supplement the work of the open county drains — the latter only furnishing 

 the main outlets and principal water courses for the systems of under drains 

 which each owner will put in to suit himself, and when he has considerable 

 money invested in under drains, and finds them discharging into the main 

 outlets a foot or two below their bottoms, he will soon see the necessity for and 

 be Avilling to stand the expense of putting them down the necessary depth. 



The open county drains, in some few cases, drain the lands sufficiently for 

 cultivation, and in many cases sufficiently to enable them to produce fine crops 

 of hay ; but of course a piece of wet land must be quite narrow if a single drain, 

 however deep, running through it, is expected to drain the wliole of it suffi- 



