68 GREENE COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



enough so that they can easily be cleaned out. Now for the 

 results: I never fail to raise 



A GOOD CROP OF CORN, WET OR DRY. 



Two years ago I spent between three and four hundred dol- 

 lars draining one eighty, that had been in grass a long time. 

 It was very level, and in a wet time would almost mire a snipe. 

 The main drain was 800 rods in length and in some places five 

 feet deep, in no place less than three feet. It ra-n angling 

 across the eighty, commencing at the scuth-east corner and 

 crossing the highway near the north-west corner, thence running 

 through my neighbor's cellar, which, in wet seasons usually had 

 two or three feet of water in it until near mid-Summer. Of 

 course it was good-bye to water, audit was then possible to dig 

 the cellar a foot deeper. The tile in the main drain Avere mostly 

 six inches in diameter. The Summer being an unusually wet 

 one, neither my neighbor, Mr. L. P. Griswold, who is one of 

 the best practical farmers in the county (his farm being thor- 

 oughly tile drained), nor myself, if our lands had not been 

 so drained, could have raised over thirty bushels of corn 

 to tfte acre, ' if as much. As it was, I got over sixty 

 bushels to the acre, and in place of the land being covered 

 with foul, noxious weeds, it was perfectly clean. Figure the 

 result. Eighty acres, sixty bushels per acre, 4,800 bushels ; 

 at thirty cents, which I could have got for it at the crib, ^1,440. 

 Take half from that, and it leaves $720 the first year, or a 

 profit of over $300, and the draining done for all time. Last 

 Spring I spent as much more on the field, having found out the 

 previous Summer just where it was needed. This has been one 

 of the dryest years we have ever known, not more than enough 

 rain having fallen after April to lay the dust until the last 

 of October, nevertheless we are husking 



A GOOD PLUMP SIXTY BUSHELS PER ACRE 



off the same field. Wet or dry, it makes no difference ; if the land 

 is thoroughly drained and well tilled, we arc sure to have a crop. 

 Last Spring there was no water in the ground, so I got a large 

 tank and hose and hauled the water to grade ray tile ditch 



