Tile Draining. 75 



We have some first-class farmers in this neighborhood, but 

 let us look around a little. It is a very wet spring. A farmer 

 put in one field of potatoes with the soil about dry enough. 

 When I asked him if he was intending to put in the other, he 

 replied, " No, it is too wet; " but still the wettest spot in the 

 field formerly, a swale now tile drained, was amply dry then. What 

 was the trouble ? A part of the field is clay and needs tile drain- 

 ing. There will be delay getting in the crop and some land 

 must get too dry or some be worked too wet all summer, and, 

 perhaps, some potatoes will have the luck to rot. What can the 

 best farmer do with such a foundation? Another good farmer, 

 one of our very best as regards push and tillage, planted 16 acres 

 of potatoes two years ago and failed to dig enough for his own 

 use, as he told me. What was the trouble? A good foundation 

 in the way of a crop of tiles well planted first. Some of the seed 

 rotted (ground too wet) , and then wet weather kept my friend 

 off the land until weeds and potatoes had about ceased to race, 

 the former having got so much the start. Oh ! my friends, we 

 are too prone to sit down and take what comes, instead of having 

 something to say about it ourselves. As our minister said last 

 Sunday, "We are too much the servant of circumstances, rather 

 than the master. ' ' Once the farmer was impotent ; now he is 

 powerful, or he may be. There were fields of potatoes on well- 

 drained land that same year that yielded near $ipo an acre, or say 

 200 per cent, net profit. I go by a large field on my way to town 

 that has oats growing on half of it (where they are not drowned 

 cut which is on no small part), and the other half the farmer 

 has not been able to put in yet this wet spring, and it is now the 2 ist 

 of May. What is the trouble? Has the season been too wet? 

 Well, yes, but there have been two days when those oats could 

 have been put in nicely if the land had all been tiled systemati- 

 cally, and a good crop all over the field would be almost certain. 

 The very foundation is lacking, and loss, delay and worry are the 

 results. But I do not need to say more. These things are, more 

 or less, to be seen every year on clay soils, and the tax paid is 

 generally several times the interest on cost of tile draining. What 

 business except farming could stand such a drain ? Suppose the 

 thorough draining costs $30 an acre, which will usually be a high 

 estimate. The interest on this sum at 7 per cent, would be only 

 $2.10. This is what the draining would actually cost per acre 

 per year. On clay land, where ordinary crops are grown, is it too 

 high to say that it may be made worth $10 an acre a year? This 

 on the average, of course. I asked this question of several leading 

 farmers last winter men who have drained largely and are 

 actually making the money and they said $10 was not too much. 

 This is, of course, only for cultivated land and the best of farm- 

 ing. It would not be difficult to find instances where a single 

 crop saved would pay entire cost of draining, particularly for 



