FARM DRAINAGE. 71 



only care it will need will be to keep the outlet free and attend 

 to emptying the silt basins. 



Cost of Drainage. The cost of drainage prevents many 

 farmers from undertaking it at all, but as it will often add to the 

 permanent profits from the land, and greatly increase its value, 

 the farmer should look upon it as an investment of capital, and 

 often it will prove the best investment he can make. Doubtless 

 there are many farms whose productive capacity might be in- 

 creased fifty per cent by one-fourth the outlay that the pur- 

 chase of one-half more land would cost, and no extra fences or 

 taxes would be called for, or extra teams to work it required, 

 as in the other case. 



The entire cost of drainage is often repaid by one or two 

 crops. Professor Townshend, in a lecture on drainage, at the 

 State University of Ohio, made the following statement : " I once 

 underdrained a part of a field at a cost of $22.50 per acre, and 

 seeded it to wheat, and at harvest it yielded twenty bushels to 

 the acre more than the part of the field not drained. I sold 

 the wheat for $1.25 per bushel, and the extra yield paid all the 

 expense of draining, and left me a little in pocket." A friend, 

 T. B. Barkley, living a few miles from me, in the flat lands of 

 Franklin County, Indiana, in response to my request that he 

 should give me his experience in draining, writes me as follows : 

 " When I took possession of my farm I found a twelve-acre field 

 which my neighbors pronounced barren. They told me that ten 

 bushels of wheat to the acre was the largest crop it had ever 

 grown, and it required a good season to give that, and they ad- 

 vised me to use it for pasture. I determined to drain it, and 

 laid two mains, with five and six inch tile, and five laterals 

 with four inch. My first wheat crop after draining gave me an 

 average of thirty-five bushels to the acre, and at one dollar per 

 bushel, the extra yield of wheat paid double what the draining 

 cost." 



The cost of draining will vary somewhat in different local- 

 ities, but less than three feet deep, in ordinary soil the digging 

 and laying of the tile should not cost above twenty-five cents 

 per rod ; the filling can be done for five cents per rod, and when 



