60 TILE DRAINAGE. 



harvest operations in large rectangular fields. The agricul- 

 ture is crooked, and in patches, where it might otherwise be 

 large and straight and rectangular. I have already spoken 

 (page 14) of the loss resulting in all tillage and harvesting 

 operations with a team, and especially with large team im- 

 plements like the twine-binder. As to the drainage of such 

 fields, Mr. T. B. Terry says (admirably as usual), in his prize 

 farm report (Ohio Agricultural Keport, 1882, page 643), 

 "There maybe some difference of opinion as to whether 

 underdraining pays where all the land must be drained ; 

 but there can be no doubt that it pays to drain waste places, 

 such as cat-swamps, swales, and low clay spots in otherwise 

 fertile fields. It is more work to cultivate around them than 

 to go right through ; or, perhaps, in a dry time we may pre- 

 pare the ground and sow the seed, only to have it destroyed 

 by water. Thus we have all the work to do and no crop, 

 except, perhaps, flag, wild grass, or frogs. 7 ' Mr. Terry him- 

 self thoroughly drained all such places on his farm, and 

 found that it paid a very high rate of interest on the cost of 

 the drainage. I am amazed that all who, like him, have 

 chiefly fertile, sandy, and gravelly loams, with some clayey 

 admixture (like Stark and Wayne Counties and Miami Val- 

 ley counties), or who have rich, porous farms of rolling 

 prairie soil, with similar depressions I say I am amazed 

 that they do not do the small amount of tile-draining neces- 

 sary to make their farming a delight instead of " a weariness 

 to the flesh." On such farms tile drainage is least expen- 

 sive of all in proportion to area and benefits derived. 



Next best it pays, probably, to tile-drain the black-soil 

 lands, once heavily wooded, for example like those in the 

 great limestone region of Western and especially of North- 

 western Ohio. These soils are less porous than the prairie 

 soils last described, but far more porous than the stiff, clayey 

 soils first described, and like my own farm. As a rule these 

 lands are more level than either of the other classes, and most 

 of them were originally timbered. The soil and subsoil are 



