LAND DRAINAGE IN NEW YORK 



Elmer O. Fippin 

 Professor of Soil Technology, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 



The necessity for reasonable drainage of the soil for the pro- 

 duction of nearly all of the common farm and garden crops is 

 recogiiized by all persons connected with agriculture. Farmers 

 generally know that a saturated condition of the soil is unfavor- 

 able for the growth of the staple plants. As to what consti- 

 tutes reasonable drainage of the soil there is much difference of 

 opinion. This fact is especially evident when one studies the 

 farm land of the state in the light of the results of modern in- 

 vestigation into the causes of soil fertility. 



To the mind of some persons land is well drained if its surface 

 has a good slope. Land, on the surface of which water does not 

 stand during most of the crop season, may seem well drained. 

 Continued saturation during the winter or protracted periods of 

 subsoil saturation in the summer does not seem particularly ob- 

 jectionable to such minds. 



On the other hand the fact is that land which is intermit- 

 tently wet for two or three days at a time is the cause of much 

 greater loss to the farmer than occurs on land which is flooded 

 the year round and is commonly known as swampy. Such land 

 is let alone and not used for farming purposes until it is at least 

 partly drained. On the other class of land — that which is in- 

 termittently wet — any attempt that is made to use it for tilled 

 crops, entails a loss of labor, seed and fertilizers which cuts 

 deeply into profits. 



EXTENT OF SWAMP LAND IN NEW YORK 



There are about twenty-five hundred square miles of swamp 

 land in New York. This is distributed in many scattered small 

 and large areas found in nearly every part of the state. Some 

 of it is tidal salt marsh around ISTew York and on Long Island 

 but the greater part is upstate. Of this area about eight hun- 

 dred square miles is composed of muck soil, and it is in this 



[1657] 



