1 68 



FARM DEVELOPMENT 



right quality. In still other cases, a mixture of pure 

 sand with the clay is an advantage. All this experi- 

 menting incurs expense and should be done by persons 

 who have a knowledge of the business. 



Often tile factories have been built where it has been 

 found impracticable to make good tiles from the avail- 

 able clay, and thus a serious loss has been incurred, 

 both to the promoters of the factory, and to the farmers 

 who need, in their vicinity, a factory from which they can 

 HILL get tiles at a 



reasonable cost 

 and without the 

 expense of long 

 railroad, water 

 or wagon trans- 

 portation. Tile 

 factories prop- 

 erly inaugu- 

 rated and oper- 

 ated have 

 usually been 

 profitable, and there are many new sections in need of 

 factories to supply drain tiles with which to improve the 

 large areas of wet lands. In some sections of Minnesota, 

 for example, the farmers buy tiles from factories so far 

 distant that the cost of railway transportation is greater 

 than the cost of the tiles at the factory. 



Cost of drain tiles. Under the conditions of labor at 

 the beginning of the twentieth century, three-inch and 

 four-inch drain tiles have cost, at the factories where 

 large quantities are made under favorable conditions, 

 in the neighborhood of $9 and $13, respectively, per 

 thousand feet. The table on page 169 shows, relatively, 

 the average cost, weight, etc., of drain tiles, as given by a 

 manufacturing firm near Elgin, 111., for the several sizes 

 ordinarily made from 3 to 15 inches in diameter. 



Figure 71. Drain through pond, with lateral on right to in- 

 tercept seepage water from hillside and another on left to drain 

 a fiat area. 



