198 LAND DRAINAGE 



soil. 1 The area lay adjacent to a stream which emptied 

 into Lake Mendota less than half a mile away. The 

 stream could not, therefore, be lowered. The method of 

 procedure was somewhat as follows : 



1. The area to be drained was cut off from the bank of 

 the stream by cutting a narrow trench, parallel to the 

 stream and probably four feet deep (the depth is not given 

 in the report). This trench was filled with clayey soil 

 hauled from higher ground near by, so that when the 

 earth was fully settled and the hauling completed, the 

 top of the dike thus formed stood 18 inches above the 

 surface of the stream. This artificial dike was to prevent 

 the passage of water from the stream to the drained area 

 either by seepage or overflow. 



2. At one corner of the area, just in from the dike, a 

 reservoir or sump, 40 feet by 60 feet and 4 feet deep, was 

 dug. An open ditch dug parallel to the dike and ten 

 feet from it opened into the reservoir. Later, tile drains 

 were laid two rods apart, emptying into the opened 

 ditch; a few of them opened into the reservoir, so that 

 the drainage water from the whole system gravitated to 

 the reservoir. Between the reservoir and the dike a 

 well 4 feet deep was dug, walled with brick, and connected 

 with the reservoir by a line of 6-inch sewer tile. " Over 

 the well was placed a fourteen foot eclipse windmill, 

 carried on a forty-foot tower. The pump rod of the 

 windmill was attached to an eight by twelve inch iron 

 pump placed low down in the well." By this means the 

 drainage water was lifted over the dike from the well. 

 For several years the windmill, which was in gear all the 

 time, removed the drainage water from the 10-acre area. 



1 Twelfth Annual Report Wisconsin Experiment Station, p. 

 232. 



