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DRAINAGE. 167 
DRAINAGE. 
DRAINAGE IN MINNESOTA. 
PROF. W. M. HAYS, FARGO, N. D. 
The contour of Minnesota is unlike that of any other state in the Union, 
The great sheet of glacial driftis peculiarly distributed. It is stratified 
with alternate pervious and impervious layers, and withal so piled up in 
morainic debris that lakes are very numerous, ponds are common, sloughs 
are in many hollows, large tracts are swampy; in many cases the land is 
nearly level, and sluggish streams are not uncommon. There is really a 
good per cent. of the surface of the state that is too wet for the plow, and 
this, too, in spite of the comparatively small rainfall of the state. Our 
farmers are rapidly subduing all the naturally drained lands for grain 
raising, and have begun to reclaim, for the same purpose, the moist and 
wet lands. As observed by all old residents in prairie sections, the culti 
vation of the soil, the pasturing and mowing of wild moist lands, and the 
general easier surface drainage resulting from open ditches, and a remova 
of native impediments to drainage in hollows and streams, and especially 
the removal of forest conditions in native forests, all tend to lower the 
Soil water. This is shown by the necessity, after ten to twenty years, of 
making surface wells deeper, by the drying up of moist springs, by sloughs 
becoming passable, and even by the drying up of lakes and ponds. ‘True: 
during wet cycles of years the water again partially rises to its old stand” 
ard, but it never again reaches the original point. Theaverage annual 
rainfall is not thought to have been reduced, but the amount kept in store 
on the surface and in the upper strata of earth is certainly materially 
lessened with man’s occupancy. 
We use a great quantity of the rainfall by making our arable lands 
porous and able to absorb the rain, which is again given back to the at- 
mosphere through the leaves of growing crops. The upper several feet of 
our cultivated fields thus serves as a temporary storehouse for a great 
part of the water which formerly ran off the dense native sod to become 
a part of that filling up sloughs and lakes. Our people do not, as yet, 
take kindly to drainage. They have settled down into the practice of 
using their moist lands for meadows and with a few open ditches have 
converted their really wet lands into moist meadow lands. These lands, 
too moist for the plow, they have given the name of natural meadow 
lands. Very many believe that it would be a great mistake to underdrain 
these lands. They say that these lands are their stand-bys for cheap, 
ough feeds in years so dry that arable lands cannot produce a crop. How 
much there is in this position I am not ready yet to say, for the western 
part of the state, but for the southeastern part I emphaticatly oppose the 
idea. These lands, if well drained, will not only produce hay of a better 
quality, but take the average of a series of years and they will produce 
more tons per acre of the better feed. Besides, underdraining allows these 
richest of our lands to be used for raising grains and other crops, giving 
