338 AGRICULTURE 



But perhaps fully as important is the occasional small 

 piece of wet ground on farms now under tillage. In cer- 

 tain regions there is hardly a farm that does not have its 

 low marshy places where crops drown out in wet times, or 

 which are allowed to lie without cultivation. In nearly all 

 cases this land could be made the equal of the remainder 

 of the farm by drainage and proper management. 



Surface drainage. Surface drainage is never so 

 thorough and satisfactory as underdrainage, yet it will often 

 improve conditions enough to pay. By surface drainage 

 is meant the opening of runs or ditches to allow the escape 

 of surface water that otherwise would stand on the soij, 

 flood over lower ground, or percolate down to add to the 

 gravitational water already in the subsoil. 



Low ground is sometimes plowed in narrow strips, the 

 frequent dead furrows allowing surface drainage. If there 

 is a slight slope and the furrows can open freely at the end, 

 this will prove of great benefit. Where such simple drain- 

 age will not serve, it is sometimes necessary to construct 

 open ditches, though these should give way to underdrain- 

 .age when this is possible. For underdrainage is under most 

 conditions a more successful way of removing the water, 

 and it saves much loss of ground and the cutting up of 

 fields. 



Making surface drains. Surface runs which are only 

 required to remove surplus water during flood seasons may 

 be made one and one-half feet deep and ten feet wide at the 

 top at a cost of about twenty-five cents a rod, using a road 

 grader for the excavating. Such shallow runs are often 

 seeded, and the edges leveled off and cultivated, thus avoid- 

 ing waste of land. Open ditches of this kind are often de- 

 sirable in connection with underdrainage. They also serve 



