drainag: 



123 



tions to the work — leaving the actual cost, accidents aside, $ioo 

 per acre. 



Of course the question is asked, and asked generally, I think, 

 with a good deal of doubt as to the answer, whether this expen- 

 sive, work can possibly pay — whether we shall ever be able to get 

 back a hundred dollars per acre as a result of the beneficial influ- 

 ence of the draining. Suppose we do not. We purchased the 

 farm to have the farm, and not to get back its cost ; and wq did 

 the draining, not in order that we might pocket the cost of the 

 draining, but in order that the cost might be profitably invested. 

 If the money had not been used in this way it would probably 

 have brought a return of 6 per cent, on a safe investment. .It is 

 now invested in the safest possible manner and if the result of 

 this thorough draining of land, otherwise good, does not amount 

 to at least $6 per acre, it will be remarkable. My own impres- 

 sion is that in favorable seasons such acres as are well cultivated 

 will bring a return (ascribable entirely to the draining) of at least 

 $30 each. And in addition to all this there is the satisfaction of 

 knowing that when plowing day comes plowing can be done, and 

 that it will not be, as it hitherto has been, postponed for a month 

 on account of a single heavy rain. Probably the ability to 

 systematize the labor of the farm and carry on its various opera- 

 tions without interruption will, of itself, be worth $6 an acre every 

 year, 



I have gone thus particularly into a description of a purely per- 

 sonal operation with the belief that there is no sort of argument 

 which is so effective with readers generally, and especially with 

 agricultural readers, as one that is based on actual experiment ; 

 and, in connection with the map, any farmer will be able, from the 

 description given, to form a better idea of how the work of draining 

 may be done, and of its extent and cost, than by any description of 

 a purely hypothetical case. 



When the Ogden Farm drainage was commenced the best 

 process for doing the work and the best means were those de- 

 scribed in the first edition of my work on draining,* and the system 



* " Draining for Profit and Draining for Health." New York, O. Judd & Co. 1867. 



