FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 443 



DRAINAGE ENGINEERING. 



Drainage engineering is a side of drainage about which the general 

 public has very little opportunity to learn. There is a great deal pub- 

 lished and said about the importance and value of drainage to the land 

 owner in reclaiming areas of land before entirely waste, and in making 

 other areas more productive, and it is true that too much can hardly be 

 said about these benefits, for they are the main objects for which land 

 drainage is undertaken. We can not be too well informed regarding the 

 scientific principles and practical methods by which these great results 

 are attained. However, while directing our attention to the cultural 

 and sanitary sides of drainage, we should not forget the work of the 

 drainage engineer, without whose services it is impossible properly to 

 plan and carry out drainage work. 



The drainage engineer is a product of modern civilization, for al- 

 though something in the way of drainage has been' attempted ever sincf- 

 ancient times, it is only with the recent past that serious efforts have 

 been made to reduce the principles of the art to systematic form. Even 

 yet there is still a great deal of work to be done to collect the data and 

 perfect the practice which forms the basis of drainage engineering. 

 Especially in the parts of our own country in which drainage has been 

 undertaken mainly in recent years, is there much to be done to secure 

 the data by which properly to adapt the practice of drainage to local 

 conditions. 



In Iowa we have too often entirely forgotten the existence of the 

 drainage engineer, or have decided to "save" his fee by dispensing with 

 his services. I have heard of one farmer who has spent a large sum for 

 drainage, and who estimates that he lost $500 by not employing a com- 

 petent engineer. The wet seasons of 1902 and 1903 have shown in a 

 forcible way the disastrous consequences to Iowa farmers of ill-advised 

 plans and improper construction in drainage work. Generous fees for 

 competent engineers could have been paid many times over from the 

 losses to the crops of the State in these two years alone. The writer 

 imagines that the results would be startling could exact data be col- 

 lected showing in how large a percentage of cases tile drains have proveii 

 inadequate because too small or laid at too shallow depths, and the 

 chances are that we would be considerably astonished could we learn 

 exactly how often tile drains supposed to have been laid to true grade? 

 have been found choked with mud because actually built on a grape-vii-e 

 twist. Even where an engineer has been employed he has too often been 

 forced to take the position of a mere surveyor to set grade stakes (which 

 the ditcher follows or not as he pleases), instead of being retained and 

 paid to prepare comprehensive plans for the entire drainage system on 

 an adequate scale, and by personal supervision to see that such planet 

 are properly carried out. 



Drainage engineering, like law and the practice of medicine, require 

 so high a degree of technical skill that it is unreasonable for the un- 

 trained individual to think he can do his own drainage engineering as 

 it would be for him to insist on doing his own doctoring. In fact, drain- 

 age and the practice of medicine are alike in one important particular — 



