ALKALI AND WATER LOGGED LANDS 29 



TILE DRAINAGE IN THE RECLAMATION OF WATER- 

 LOGGED AND ALKALINE LANDS 



BY 



J. C. WHEELON, CHIEF ENGINEER, UTAH-IDAHO SUGAR Co. 



Though but little time has heretofore been given to lands which 

 are not producing money crops, it appears that the cultivation of the 

 waste places, and the reclamation of the vast tracts of land that are 

 now idle and unproductive presents some valuable possibilities for the 

 conservation and enhancement of the agricultural resources of the 

 country. For, in agriculture even more than in other lines of science 

 or business, it is necessary to plan constantly for future improvement 

 and expansion. 



While great efforts are being justly put forth to bring the new and 

 as yet unclaimed desert under the life-giving influences of irrigation, 

 a very large field of endeavor awaits those who will devote their at- 

 tention to the reclamation of lands already under irrigation. 



We may travel the length and breadth of the settled portion of 

 Utah and we find on one side the bench lands which are thirsting for 

 water, while on the other side we can see the lower lands giving up to 

 the unequal contest against over-irrigation, and we find ourselves 

 wondering which should have the first aid, the man dying of thirst or 

 the one being drowned Personally, I am attracted to the drowning 

 one as in no other way can we be so completely convinced that there is 

 water to spare for all the needs of the thirsty one. 



While we realize that we in Utah are still in the primer in the 

 reclamation of water-logged and alkaline lands, yet the construction 

 of seventy-five miles of farm drain tiling in Box Elder County on 

 lands belonging to the Utah-Idaho Sugar Co., and others, has been 

 both instructive and profitable. 



We have learned that the salt grass and toole swales can be drained 

 and made to yield the finest of wild hay, and the ground made dry and 

 firm enough to admit teams and wagons; that water-logged and min- 

 eralized sage brush ground can be drained and made to produce oats 

 and alfalfa and that old water-logged and non-productive farms can 

 be drained and made to produce profitable crops. We finished the tile 

 drainage of a field of sage brush in October (1912) and on August 

 20th, (1913) there was threshed from this field an average of 35 

 bushels of oats per acre and a fairly good stand of young alfalfa that 

 was sown with the oats is now growing on the ground. This means 

 that the ground was plowed, brushed, leveled, converted into a seed 

 bed, harvested and threshed in less than ten months, four months of 

 which was winter weather and unfit for working the land. 



In August, 1910, the writer finished a tile drain system on sixty 

 acres of water-logged and alkaline alfalfa land that had been cropped 

 for several years before the water and mineral "took" it, the lands 



