196 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ing when your land wants draining is to find how deeply plaiits root under the 

 best conditions ; and then, if you find a place where they are confined to eight 

 or ten inches of surface soil, on account of hard sub-oil saturated with stas^nant 

 water, or even with cold spring-water oozing gradually from the hillside, as it 

 frequently does, drain at once. 



And now we come to the question, 



Will it Pmj ? 



This will depend on four conditions : 1st, the value of land ; 2d, character of 

 soil and subsoil ; 3d, the productiveness after drainage ; 4tii, the character of 

 the work on drains. We will proceed to look at these four conditions in their 

 reverse order, and 1st, "The character of the w^ork on the drain:" 



It is an old adage, that ''AVhatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well ;" 

 and no where is this more applicable than in tile draining. We should first have 

 a definite plan from the start, and work to that plan. Have tlie level stakes 

 stuck, and know where the best outlet will be. Then select none but the best 

 cylindrical tile, and reject all broken and defective ones. Get none but work- 

 men on whom you can rely, if you cannot do the work yourself, or be there all 

 of the time to superintend, as two or three carelessly laid tile with defective 

 joints in some important place may destroy half the effect of draining on a large 

 tract or portion of a field. 



I wish to put tliis very strongly, so I repeat. Better superintend the laying of 

 every tile yourself ; for once well laid, they are silent workers for a century. 

 Be careful not to lay them near any bunches of willows, or near elm trees that 

 are living, as they will send roots that will completely fill up a tile and choke it. 

 There was a tile taken up from Field No. 5, on the College farm, this year, that 

 was filled with the fibrous roots of an elm tree that stood near the drain, and 

 obstructed the flow of water, and the drain had only been laid three years. So 

 von see we should leave no stone unturned in doiu'^; everything to make a drain 

 thorough in its work and lasting in its benefits. 



This is one reason why farmers so often condemn it, as they say, after a trial 

 of its merits. 



2d. We should consider the productiveness of the land before and after 

 draining. 



There is much difference of opinion in regard to the improvement caused by 

 thorough drainage. Many farmers would be satisfied with an investment that 

 would pay 10 per cent, a year, except in case of draining. They would think that 

 if they did not get immediate returns, say in one or two years, it did not pay. But 

 just wait a moment. Drains, well put down to a proper depth, will last, at the 

 least calculation, twenty years, and much longer if the proper precautions are 

 taken. If, then, the crop is increased one-tenth by draining, a man who has the 

 money to invest has realized 10 per cent for money invested. But if, as is 

 nearly always the case, the farmer receives from 25 to 50 per cent, and even 100 

 per cent, he soon gets his pay back, principal and interest, and has his drains left, 

 and soil in condition, with jiroper farm economy and manuring, to repeat this 

 year after year. An instance of this kind comes to my mind now, where a 

 farmer drained a low field with excellent soil that had nearly always failed to 

 ripen about a half crop of corn. After a thorough system of draining, the crop 

 was doubled the first year after the drains were put down ; and to use the words 

 of the farmer himself and (by the way an honored member of our Legislature), 



