116 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



TILE DRAINAGE, ITS BENEFITS. 



BY J. ARXETT, C. E. 



Kind reader, remember that tile, well burned, 

 iemivitrified, will not decay. Remember further, that 

 when such tile are laid to a proper gradient with close 

 joints to exclude silt, the benefits increase with time 

 and the improvement does not deteriorate with age, but 

 grows better and better, doing its work promptly, when 

 work is to do, hot or cold, rain or shine, snow or blow, 

 day or night; it is on duty and never goes on strike. 

 A. 0. Jones, formerly a tilemaker of Columbus, now of 

 Zancsville, Ohio, showed the writer a piece of tile, 

 brought by him from Italy that had lain in the ground 

 1.500 years. 



For all practical purposes such tile may be regarded 

 as indestructible. Tile should be everywhere large 

 enough to do the work likely to come upon it. The 

 writer believed at the time he as engineer began run- 

 ning county ditches that the tile "he was putting in 

 was not large enough. Now he knows that it ought to 

 have been at least as large again. Several things con- 

 spired to bring about such work. First, farmers were 

 not 'educated up to the importance of tile drainage. 

 They knew but little about it and cared less. Second, 

 there were no large tile made then as now. Then 2 

 inches to 12 inches was the oiitput, the latter size being 

 regarded as ne plus ultra. Now we have from 3 to 42 

 inches, the latter delivering an ocean gush of water 

 \vhen a cloudburst puts it on its muscle. Third, then, 

 the price of tile for like sizes '-was more than double 

 what it is now and of an inferior quality. The writer, 

 for some 200 rods of the outlet of his first county ditch, 

 paid '$2 a rod for foot lengths, 12-inch tile. And such 

 tile! An end-view look at a pile gave you, roughly, 

 the circle, the ellipse, the parabola and other shapes to 

 which mathematics, as yet, have given no name, and 

 all with a greater or less unequal length of sides. So 

 the tile had to be laid rather serpentine in the trench 

 to make passable joints. 



The benefits of tile drainage are many. The writer 

 will here enumerate a few. Deeply laid tile. 4 to 6 

 feet deep (reader, don't bug out your eyes, you are 

 not hurt), will aerate and air slake and make porous 

 and friable a hard pan subsoil and give the roots of the 

 growing crops to forage upon underlying the impover- 

 ished superincumbent soil skin in which the rootlets of 

 plants, after stomachs are filled, fairly run riot and play 

 liidc and seek. How is this? Water and air are co- 

 workers in plant growth. They cannot both occupy the 

 soil at the same time. Water must precede the air in 

 the soil. See that field of growing corn, the soil fully 

 saturated with water and puddles standing here, there 

 and yonder. Now what? The. field is deeply under- 

 drained, 4 to 6 feet deep. Its owner was not afraid of 

 his shadow and believing he was doing a work for all 

 coming time and all expenses in ditching were the 

 same except a little deeper digging and a -little more 

 back filling, he went down, yes, he went down to his 

 arms, his chin, the top of his head and if need be so 

 lie could barely reach the surface, in places, and laid 

 his tile to a proper gradient. And then what? Tile 

 thus well and deeply laid need no bidding to begin the 

 removal of flood waters, but in gushing streams the 

 superabundant water is borne* away. What now? See 

 bow rapidly the water subsides with the air at its heels 

 in its wakes armed with its chemical laboratory ready 

 for work on the phosphates, hydrates, sulphates, 



nitrates, etc., left on the roadside by the water in its 

 retreat. 



What more about the air? The soil is deeply 

 drained. The tile is not at work for the reason no 

 work is to do. The superincumbent air is as cold as 

 Greenland. And what of that? Volume for volume it 

 is heavier than the air in the tile and soil and rushing 

 in at the outlet of the drain, forces the warm air in the 

 mains, sub-mains, laterals, sub-laterals, out into the ad- 

 jacent soil and up through the soil to the cold air 

 above. This particular volume of cold air by the ab- 

 sorption of heat from the tile and adjacent soil, has 

 expanded, occupying greater space with same weight is 

 out-weighed by the outlying cold air and by it in its 

 turn is forced out and up through the soil. Does it end 

 here? Nay, verily. It has made only a beginning. 

 This process of warming air in the tile and soil and 

 then forcing it up through the soil to the surface must 

 go on so long as volume for volume the air in the tile 

 drain and soil is warmer than the outlying air. 



See the rush of air, as if forced by bellows into 

 your furnace to supply the draft of a 200-feet flue. 

 The relation between the air in the tile in winter and 

 the outlying air is the same as the air in the 200-feet 

 flue, and the external air when the fire in furnace is 

 aglow. There may be a current of water leached from 

 the soil flowing adown the tile while the cold air rushes 

 in the tile drain above. The rippling water in the tile 

 drain is of the same temperature as that of the ground 

 4 to G feet below the surface, and, good Samaritan like, 

 gives off its warmth to the cold air above. This flow- 

 ing in of cold air at the outfall of a tile drain running 

 le?s than full of water ever continues so long as the 

 exterior air is colder than the air in the drain and 

 subsoil. 



There comes a time, however, when the air in the 

 drain and subsoil is co'der than the outside air. Then 

 a reverse order takes place. The superincumbent atmos- 

 phere is ever pressing upon the ground surface with 

 a force of 14 pounds to- the square inch. This pres- 

 sure forces warm air into all the interstices of the soil 

 and this warm air gives off its warmth to the soil as 

 it goes down. Thus parting with its heat it becomes 

 colder and heavier and being a fluid and meeting in the 

 soil the least resistance in the direction of the drain, 

 the air, like water, flows thither, enters the drain, and 

 like water, flows down the drain to its outfall where it 

 takes the lowest seat. 



Thus in a thoroughly and deeply underdrained 

 soil, the air, a God-given chemist, is always on duty. 



A new and revised edition of "The Standard Guide 

 to the City of Mexico and Vicinity" by Robert S. Bar- 

 rett is announced for publication, February 1, by the 

 Modern Mexico Publishing Company of New York. 

 This will be- the third edition of Mr. Barrett's book in 

 three years. It contains a vast amount of practical 

 information for tourists, as well as a very fine collec- 

 tion of views of the Mexican Capital. Mr. Barrett, the 

 compiler of this guide, is a young Georgian, now a 

 resident of the City of Mexico, being correspondent 

 there for several' prominent United States newspapers. 



your subscriptions to the IRRIGATION AGE 

 for 1903. Send us in Post Office or Express money 

 order for $1.00. 



