72 TILE DRAINAGE. 



debt (mortgage too) for the purchase price of my farm ; and 

 I doubt whether I could have got out of debt without thus 

 draining- as a basis for wheat, orchard, clover, and the best 

 tillage of the land and use of the manure from dairy and 

 teams. It helped me to profitable crops of wheat regularly 

 on all land tiled and properly manured or fertilized, and it 

 made the manures and fertilizers go twice as far (into the 

 soil and crops), because it kept them from going half as far 

 (off from the farm in surface wash). This drainage helped 

 me to get profitable crops of wheat and clover regularly, and 

 over constantly increasing areas, instead of occasionally and 

 over small areas heavily manured and surface drained by 

 deep dead-furrows between high, narrow lands as before. It 

 was, I think, r the one thing that paid best on my clayey 

 farm, and was the very foundation for the successful tillage 

 and improvement of a soil which is naturally unproductive 

 and even infertile, until it has become one of great produc- 

 tiveness for all crops. Some of these facts in regard to the 

 rewards of tiling on my own land I have already given. 

 And I repeat my belief, that the clayey soils of the Western 

 Reserve, naturally rather infertile except for grass, and 

 naturally irresponsive to tillage, can be made to be really 

 paying farms financially, only by the thorough tile drainage 

 of considerable portions of their area and their careful culti- 

 vation in connection with dairying or other keeping of good 

 live stock. 



But this does not imply that the work should all be done 

 in one year or even five, or be done by expensive hired labor. 

 A few acres, even one or two, can be tiled each year when 

 other work is light, and when the tiling can be done by the 

 owner himself with the regular farm force. 



THE SEASON OF THE YEAR TO TILE. 



By November 15th or 20th the usual" fall work" of the 

 farm should be done up. Then if the system of drainage is 

 properly planned arid laid out, the work of drainage can go 



