Drainage in New York. 



245 



a rather heavy phase of the type verging on clay loam. These types 

 belong with the second drainage division made in the State. 



The third type of soil embraces the depressions between _the ridges 

 which receive the natural drainage from the adjacent higher land along 

 with the soil wash. , In such places water loving vegetation throve and 

 gave them the characteristics of marsh or swamp. But it was not this 

 very wet land that Air. Johnston first drained. He says, " Encouraged 

 by a considerable in- 

 crease of products de- 

 rived from my farm 

 from draining, I deter- 

 mined to extend the sys- 

 tem as rapidly as con- 

 venience and circum- 

 stance would permit. 

 Upon examining, it ap- 

 peared necessary to pos- 

 sess a piece of ground 

 belonging to a neighbor, 

 that I might secure a 

 good and sure outlet for 

 the water from my up- 

 land fields that required 

 drainage in places. With this in view, I purchased ten and three-fifths 

 acres of low land saturated with water. A part of this land, say about 

 four acres, within from twelve to eighteen inches of ,the surface was a 

 black vegetable mold lying on a stratum of clay of the same depth under 

 which I found a hard bottom for my tiles not over three feet in depth. 

 I felt persuaded that those ten acres were wet from my own upland as 

 well as from my neighbor's wet land adjoining. The first ditch I dug was 

 directly on a line betwixt the land I got from my neighbor and that ^ he 

 still owns. This I found cut off all the water on that side. I then com- 

 menced draining that ten and three-fifths acres ; also about thirty acres of 

 upland. A large proportion of the upland did not require draining. In 

 the two pieces which made into one field containing about forty acres I 

 laid 1072.5 rods of drain which have drained^the whole extent in a thorough 

 manner. * * * The first year after completing the drains in this 

 •field, the whole or nearly the whole, upland and all, was planted to corn. 

 The season was not favorable for that crop in this neighborhood, yet the 

 crop was fair, say forty bushels shelled corn ^ to the acre. The low ground 

 was excellent where nothing but coarse grass grew for twenty years before. 

 This year, 185 1, I harvested from this field a crop of wheat and a heavier 



Fig. iSq. — Gold and silver pieces presented to 

 John Johnston in recognition of his services to agricul- 

 tural interests in the practice of tile drainage. 



