244 



Bulletin 254. 



between 60 and 70 miles of tile drains. They were gradually installed 

 during thirty-five years and are as clear a proof as can be had of the 

 conviction of Mr, Johnston that tile drainage pays when properly done. 

 He was a man of limited means and depended upon the returns from the 

 land for the money to make the drainage improvement. The first tile 

 were installed with borrowed capital and after that time he depended upon 

 the profits from increased crops on one piece of land, which he had drained, 

 to install the drainage on the next field. So convincing were his results, 



not only to himself but also to his 

 neighbors, that from 1852 to i860, 

 Mr. Swan — a man of means and a 

 son-in-law of Mr. Johnston who 

 owned 335 acres of land adjacent to 

 the Johnston farm on the north and 

 since widely known as the Rose Hill 

 estate — completely and thoroughly 

 drained this lanrl installing, it is said, 

 about 75 miles of tile. 



The drainage system on both of 

 these farms, while resembling in some 

 respects the English systems, differed 

 in tliis fundamental point, that they 

 were adapted to the soil and the natu- 

 ral drainage conditions. While Mr. 

 Johnston's ideals of thorough drain- 

 age may have been, as he says, from 

 two to four rods apart according to 

 the character of the soil, he very 

 carefully studied the surface feat- 

 ures of the underground seepage and 

 adapted the size, depth and distance 

 apart of the tile to these conditions. 

 The land drained by Mr. Johnston lies adjacent to the head of Seneca 

 lake and while no tliorough study of the soil types in this region has been 

 made, the soils appear to belong to three general types. These are the 

 Dunkirk clay next to the lake and Dunkirk loam higher on the slope with 

 some phase of dark alluvial loam in the depressions. The general surface 

 is rolling as shown in figure 188 which is taken from near the lake look- 

 ing toward the farmstead. There are no sharp breaks but gentle undula- 

 tions giving a range in elevation between different parts of the farm of 

 perhaps 80 or 100 feet. The clay type is especially fine textured and 

 naturally dense ^ and this property is clearly shown in a large area of such 

 soil a mile or more to the north of the farm at the head of Seneca lake. 

 Much the larger part of the farm consists of the Dunkirk loam which is 



Fig. 188. — Outlet of one of the sys- 

 tems of tile drani on the Johnston farm 

 as it appears at the present time. The 

 U tile at the left has served in the out- 

 let for upwards of -fifty years. In the 

 background is shown the type of land 

 drained. 



