232 FARM DEVELOPMENT 



inspection. Tile drains which are no longer working 

 must be dug up and repaired. Thus drains which have 

 been clogged by roots of trees growing in and filling them 

 with the fibrous mass, must be taken up or, if the trees 

 must remain, sewer pipes should be laid with the collars 

 packed with cement. Properly laid tiles very rarely fail 

 to continue to be indefinitely efficient. In a wide ex- 

 perience the writer knows of only relatively very few 

 tile drains which have become obstructed. 



Drainage education. Education in farm subjects is 

 now making such rapid strides that anyone needing a 

 knowledge of a particular subject can find some means 

 of gaining information along the desired line. The 

 national government at Washington is taking an active 

 part in drainage and other rural engineering subjects. 

 Fifty or more agricultural colleges are dealing with the 

 subject of drainage from the standpoint of the needs of 

 the respective states. Some of these colleges have de- 

 partments of agricultural engineering, and in these schools 

 men are trained with a general knowledge of rural en- 

 gineering, who can easily master the subject of any drain- 

 age project so as to be useful in planning and super- 

 intending the construction of large drainage and diking 

 enterprises. Traveling farmers' institutes are adapted to 

 encouraging neighborhoods where drainage is needed that 

 have not undertaken the reclamation and improvement 

 of wet lands, giving the knowledge, not only of how to 

 unite on some co-operative plan, but also the knowledge 

 of how to secure information as to the details of how 

 drains improve the farm and how the plans can be made 

 and the construction be carried out. The agricultural 

 press contains articles on this subject and agricultural 

 editors will gladly answer questions from farmers as to 

 methods, etc. Bulletins and reports from the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, from the state experi- 

 ment stations and agricultural colleges of the different 



