458 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



where a closed ditch would be sufficient. If you will inform yourself 

 by what others have done, you will be astonished at what a tile ditch 

 can do. Your underground ditch works all the time, getting your water 

 out of the sub-soil below, preparing a natural reservoir for the rain. 

 It is only in exceptional cases that a long ditch is needed for au outlet. 



We have on the divide between the Skunk and the Des Moines fiat 

 stretches, with here and there a pond. You would be jperfectly aston- 

 ished at what a little tile drain will do for those ponds. I know of 

 plenty of cases where a little four-inch tile run back through the prairie 

 and under that pond made it one of the finest corn fields in the world. 

 I am sure that you men will find this drainage problem easier when 

 you get into it, when you understand what this tile drain will do. While 

 it costs considerable money, yet it is the most profitable money a farmer 

 can spend. I believe that you will be surprised and that you will be 

 pleased with the results this underground tiling will do. 



If you are not doing this, I urge on you the very great importance of 

 investigating what this underground drainage will do, and you can put it 

 in, n almost every* case. I would simply cut these open ditches to make 

 an outlet. Of course, the outlet becomes important where you bring 

 many of these together and you are back from the stream. Gentlemen, 

 I thank you. 



ATTORXEY SAWYER'S ADDRESS. 



The convention calling for an opinion from Mr. P. A. Sawyer before 

 opening the business session, he spoke as follows: 



"I did not expect to be called upon the carpet, but now that -I 

 am here. I will say a few words to you in regard to the workings 

 of the law. The law provides that after things are brought forward 

 like this point, they must be brought before a commission of three, one 

 of which must be an engineer, and they shall classify the lands. The 

 supervisors shall then assess the lands according to the benefit they 

 will receive. Under this provision a ditch may be established upon 

 a petition signed by a majority of the abutting land owners. The Twenty- 

 first General Assembly passed another act providing for the inauguration 

 of proceedings by a vote of one hundred of the voters of the county. 

 The abutting owners must specify just the ditch they want and pray for, 

 the route and the termjnus. The engineer in this case is not appointed 

 to go on and lay out the ditch, saying where it shall go and where it 

 will do the most good, but his latitude is taken away from him and 

 he simply looks after the hygiene 'of the ditch after it is planned. Many 

 people are taxed but have no notice, that is, any positive notice that 

 the ditch was goins, through their lands, and I believe they are entitled 

 to positive notice. 



''Now if you draw up a new law and go down to Des Moines and 

 offer it to the legislature, it will have to go through committees, and 

 it will be taken up section by section and discussed; committee work is 

 very slow, and before that act is reported to the legislature you have 

 a large calendar. A new law would mean that we would get no help 

 this year. Amend this law, just as briefiy as you can, for the purpose 



