Tile Draining Swales, Cat Swamp, etc. 85 



three-inch tiles for this cat swamp. My idea was that the water 

 must go off in a hurry to do any good. 



I once tried draining a cellar into a land drain and it did not 

 work. When the water from the soil filled drain full it backed up 

 into the cellar, or did not take water from around the cellar. I 

 feared to drain this place into the regular main, and you can see 

 why. I must have the water go straight off at once, and not be 

 hindered at all, or my crops would suffer in the hole. I dug this 

 drain through in cold weather, laying tiles and filling as I went. 

 It cost fully $50, counting labor. I used three-inch tiles. Would 

 use four again. It was very dry the fall before we began this 

 drain and I put wheat in this field and pretty nearly all through 

 the swamp. Then I worked to get up through there and save the 

 wheat, if possible. Well, it was done. There was some wheat 

 under water when we got there, but it was saved fairly well. The 

 next season Hungarian grass was put in, and the season following 

 (1881) potatoes were planted in Lot 4, right through swamp and 

 all for the first time. Everything went all right till along in June, 

 when the potatoes were about six inches high. Then there came 

 a flood. How it did pour! W r hen I went to bed at night there 

 was a quarter acre under water, although the water was more 

 than pouring out of the drain at the outlet. I saw the wise looks 

 of two or three old neighbors the sort of I-told-you-so expression 

 " Tile draining will do to play with ;" "We pity you, but you 

 wouldn't listen to us." I didn't laugh very much. My time had 

 not come. I wasn't at all certain it would. I didn't sleep well. 

 That night was to decide whether or not I was a fool. I got out my 

 pencil again and figured out how much water was in the hole and 

 about how long it would take it to run out. In the morning it 

 was all gone to the last drop. The potatoes were slightly injured, 

 but soon recovered. We had no more rain to speak of that 

 season, and in the fall I dug and sold the potatoes from the hole 

 that was under water, and that would have been ruined but for 

 my drain for $66 ! Then I laughed. The net profit on that one 

 crop paid the entire cost of drain and a little over. We have 

 made money out of this place since, on the average, but not 

 always. It is too rich, and in a continued wet time it is too wet. 

 Laying the tiles as I did, in midwinter, and closing up as w r e 

 went, I wasted a little too much fall, and when I got to the hole 

 I could lay the tiles only 14 inches deep from the surface to top 

 of tiles. We have scraped in some since, but wish the drain was 

 deeper. This spring I put in a number of little spurs quite close 

 together, to help drain the hollow better. A shallow drain does 

 not draw far. I sighted through with level beforehand, and 

 thought I could get tiles at least two feet deep, and I would in 

 open weather, when it was possible to open the drain right 

 through before laying any tiles. 



But when I got the little swamp O drained I was not yet 

 quite fixed. That swamp at N, on neighbor's land, although it 



