TILE DKAINAGE. 29 



I might give facts from many farms in many States facts 

 of my own observation, and figures given me by the owners. 

 13ut it may be better to confine myself to my own farm and 

 my own experience, and give that the more fully, both in 

 word and picture. 



MY FIRST EXPERIMENT IN THOROUGH TILING. 



My first cobble stone drain I laid for my father about 40 

 years ago, first in our farm-garden, and afterward in our 

 large garden in Hudson village, where we lived a few years, 

 in order that "we boys" might go through college. Even 

 those single cobble drains through our gardens, with a good 

 slope, showed such excellent results in mellowing and dry- 

 ing the soil in early spring, and making tillage easier and 

 crops better, that it predisposed me toward underdrainage. 



Soon after I bought my father's farm, now nearly 27 years 

 ago, I collected cobble stones for an underdrain through a 

 wet swale or depression in one corner of what is now my 

 orchard. I hired an expert English ditcher, Mr John Win- 

 burn, to help me dig and lay the drain. Said he, " Within 

 ten years you will tile-drain this whole field, and will need a 

 four-inch tile-mam right down this valley, and I would lay it 

 now." I followed his advice. That swale, from being the 

 wettest, became the driest and most friable part of the field, 

 soonest fit to plow in spring, mellowest all summer. A 

 few years after this I lost two crops in succession on that 

 field from excessive wetness one of potatoes and one of 

 Hungarian grass, both nearly total failures. I at once 

 thoroughly tiled about 13 acres of the 15 (then in orchard) 

 with laterals 33 feet apart and 30 inches deep, and with other 

 four-inch mains as needed, in addition to the one laid before. 

 The next year I harvested 46i bushels of wheat per acre 

 from 10 acres of that field, where, bear in mind, I had just 

 had two yeai s of failure. The measurements were certified. 

 Wheat was $1.00 per bushel. The thorough drainage cost 

 me $23 per acre. The first crop of wheat ^ therefore, paid 



