104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



a revenue-producing asset, though the soil itself generally pos- 

 sesses considerable inherent fertility. Drainage is the means 

 of making this fertility available for crop production, thus 

 transforming an unproducing asset into a profitable revenue 

 producer. 



If you will pardon a personal illustration, one of the first 

 drainage projects with which I was connected was the drainage 

 of a large marsh in western Iowa. When the first surveys 

 were made of this project it was an almost impassable morass. 

 The first year following the installation of a thorough drainage 

 system a corn crop approximating 70 bushels to the acre was 

 grown without the use of any fertilizer. Undrained lands of 

 equal fertility adjoining the tract that had been drained pro- 

 duced nothing. 



Swamp lands, very similar to those in Massachusetts, have 

 been drained and placed under cultivation in the State of New 

 York. Near New Paltz, New York, fine crops of truck are 

 grown on lands which a few years ago were worthless swamps. 

 In Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa lands which were passed by 

 by the early settlers as being worthless swamps have by drain- 

 age been transformed into the famous corn belt of the United 

 States, and these lands, disregarded by the pioneer, are now 

 selling at from $150 to $300 or more per acre. 



Ignoring the monetary returns from drainage, higher motives 

 sometimes impel us to incur expenditures to correct conditions 

 which constitute a public nuisance and a menace to the public 

 health. In the second place, then, we frequently find that 

 drainage is undertaken to improve sanitary and other general 

 conditions tending toward the promotion of the public welfare. 

 The improvement of health, due to drainage in many localities, 

 has been marked. When the States in the Ohio valley were first 

 settled, inhabitants generally suffered from malaria. Ignorant 

 of the cause of this disease, the settlers took it as a matter of 

 course. As the swamps in these States were drained it was 

 observed that malaria was less prevalent. To-day malaria is 

 seldom found except in those sections which have not been 

 properly drained. The same has been found true in the lower 

 Mississippi valley. When the alluvial lands adjacent to the 

 Mississippi River were first opened for settlement, malaria was 



