FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 461 



"It is obvious tliat villages, towns and cities partly built on overflow- 

 lands will partially be inundated by spring freshets or heavy or con- 

 tinued summer rains. 



"Des Moines and other cities and towns are now discussing heavy 

 taxes and long and high levees to withstand the sudden and mighty rush 

 of waters. 



'■The farmers owning bottom land in Iowa will send up a voice as 

 of thunder, when they see the damage to their grain fields and meadov 

 lands. 



•'I write thig paper because I have had many years of experience in 

 partially or wholly getting this great rush of water off the bottom lands 

 in the quickest and cheapest manner. The quicker and more economical 

 because I cut a very narrow, though very deep ditch on my survey line 

 and give it from one to three years to cut itself into a deep and broad 

 enough channel to carry a much greater quantity of water, while the 

 velocity of the new and straight stream is many times that of the old 

 and crooked ones, which are not only retarded by tree roots, brush and 

 log impediments, but many times more by undermining the banks 

 of the old and crooked stream bed and thereby forming eddies or whirl 

 pools, which so greatly retard the velocity of the stream as to seemingly 

 bring it almost to a standstill. 



"The straightening of crooked stream beds, noticing the gain of 

 water discharged per second, is not a theory. I have practical knowl- 

 edge of what I write. I own a large farm in Marshall county, Iowa, or 

 more properly speaking several small farms of two hundred to three 

 hundred acres each, extending from the steep to gently sloping creek 

 and river hills into the higher and lower bottom lands of two creeks 

 and Iowa rivers. 



"The smaller creek, named Mud creek, coursed its very crooked bed 

 for over three quarters of a mile through one farm, and discharged itself 

 into the higher H.oney creek. I surveyed a straight line, from the point 

 where Mud creek entered my farm, on through its low lands to the 

 shortest and best point of discharge into Honey creek; by simply cutting 

 a ditch on this surveyed line, only the size of the smallest tile ditch 

 and from one to six feet deep; in a single year the water cut this little 

 narrow ditch larger than its original stream bed, although this new 

 creek channel discharged itself forty rods up stream on Honey creek 

 from the p-oint of its old or natural discharge, by cutting its new chan- 

 nel straight. It was but one fourth of a mile in length, as compared 

 with the old and crooked channel of three fourths of a mile. Being so 

 much shorter it had over double the fall. When the new and straight 

 channel was filled full of water, its increased fall made its velocity so 

 fearful, that no drift could obstruct its current. Thus when its stream 

 bed was bark full its discharge per second was several times that of the 

 old crooked stream bed at its full capacity. 



"So successful and cheap was this experiment with Mud cresk 

 bed which was three or four feet at bottom and ten to twelve feet at top 

 and three to four feet deep that I set to work to make big and crooked 

 Honey creek straight, the stream bed of which was ten to twenty feet 



