248 Bulletin 254. 



these pieces made from a photograph by C. G. Elhott are shown in figure 

 189. 



The productiveness of Air. Johnston's farm is widely known. A neigh- 

 boring farmer writing in 1866 remarked that he was going to build a barn 

 " after my land is drained and I have had two or three of John Johnston's 

 wheat crops." The farm was devoted primarily to wheat but hay and 

 some other grain was also grown. The yields of all these crops was tm- 

 usually large for the region and also for the present day. For 1847, he 

 reports a yield of 83 bushels of shelled corn, considered the largest ever 

 raised in the county up to that time. On the same piece of tile drained 

 land, he reports similar large yields of barley and hay in subsequent years. 

 Nor has this large productiveness disappeared up to the present time. Mr. 

 Charles Rose Mellen who has owned the farm for a number of years, also 

 gets similarly large yields of the same crops grown by Mr. Johnston. Mr. 

 Mellen takes much pride in the historic features of the place as well as 

 the results of the tile drainage. He considers the tile still in good work- 

 ing condition. Occasionally it is necessary to replace a tile but that they 

 continue doing good service, after fifty or more years, is shown by 

 figure 188 which is a view of the outlet of one of the large mains where 

 two 6 inch U tile were laid side by side. The tiles were flowing full of 

 water and on the left bank is one which has served at the outlet for over 

 fifty years and is still in a good state of preservation even under the un- 

 usually severe conditions to which an outlet tile is subjected. A nearer 

 view of this is shown in figure 215. The surface features of land drained 

 by this system is shown in figure 190. 



Mr. Mellen showed the writer a piece of wheat stubble which produced 

 during the season of 1907 an average of 44 bushels of wheat over a 

 number of acres. Figure 191 shows some of the stubble and a block 

 of the soil illustrating its well granulated condition. The stubble was so 

 even in character that there was very little choice in selecting the place 

 for the photograph. Mr. Mellen reports that all his crops yield in the 

 same generous proportions. In figure 190 is shown the Johnston home- 

 stead built in 1822 and also occupied by Mr. Mellen until 1908 when he 

 moved into the new residence shown in the background in figure 188 

 which also shows the old residence. All this is the product of the land. 



But it would be misleading to leave the impression that all this large 

 productiveness is the immediate result of tile draining. . It is an example 

 of the point made above, viz., that good drainage should precede good 

 tillage and the use of manures. Mr. Johnston was a good farmer. He 

 practiced, as does Mr. Mellen, good tillage. He grew clover and he kept 

 some stock, the manure from which was carefully applied to the land. 

 And by the assistance of thorough drainage, he obtained large returns 

 from these. Mr. Johnston' died at Geneva in November 1880 at the age 

 of ninety years. 



