DRAINAGE IN NEW YORK. 



The primary purposes of this bulletin are first, to call specific attention 

 to the intense and wide-spread need of better farm drainage in the State ; 

 second, to recommend and urge the substitution of tile drainage for most 

 of the surface drainage in use at present; third, to get in touch with all 

 those persons in the State who have had experience with tile drains and 

 with those who will install them in the future to determine (a) how large 

 the results are which accrue from tile drainage on all types of soil and 

 with all kinds of crops and farm practice; (b) the best methods of lay- 

 ing tile on different soil types; and (c) the cost of tile drainage on 

 different kinds of soil and under different farm conditions. 



The general practice of no other single improvement in the manage- 

 ment of New York soils promises to give as large net returns as thorough 

 drainage. The cultivated lands of the State have long passed their virgin 

 condition of productiveness and to obtain the largest possible crops, it is 

 now necessary to practice the most thorough and modern methods of 

 tillage. This does not mean that our soils are exhausted and no longer 

 capable of giving the large crops obtained when the land was first cleared. 

 They may be and have been made to produce as large or even larger crops 

 than were first obtained. It means that more exact and thorough methods 

 of soil management must be practiced by the farmer. By means of 

 nature's long course rotation, most of the land had, at that early time, 

 reached a condition of good tilth. By a long continued process of selection, 

 the plants adapted to special conditions — as swamp, sand or clay — had 

 been secured. The soil was loose and open as a result of both the develop- 

 ment of plant roots and the accumulation of vegetable mold and humus 

 which were incorporated with -the soil through natural processes of cultiva- 

 tion. This large accumulation of organic remains put the soil in good phy- 

 sical condition and tended to keep it so as long as the organic matter w^as 

 present in considerable amounts. But in the large majority of cases indif- 

 ferent tillage methods have permitted the loss of this organic matter — 

 humus — to take place more rapidly than the accumulation processes with 

 the result that the soil became lighter colored and less favorable physically 

 to the development of crops. Along with this loss of organic matter and 

 the less thorough permeation by plant roots came pronounced physical 

 changes of far reaching effects. The soil tended more to become hard, 

 the rain water moved more rapidly through or over it and the subsequent 

 rapid drying caused it to become hard and dense. Such soil requires 

 more careful tillage to maintain its former good tilth. This deterioration of 

 physical condition is accompanied by a change in the relation of the soil 

 to the natural rainfall, ^''ariations in the accumulation and movement of 



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