104 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July, 



UNDERDRAINING. 



Professor J. M. M'Bryde in Journal of Ameri- 

 can Agriculture. 

 Modern writers on uuderdrainiug generally 

 assume that tlie practice is of comjiaratiYcly 

 recent origin. Waring, in his work on drain- 

 ing, remarks; 



The effort (probably' an unconscious one) to 

 raake the theories of modern underdraining 

 conform to those advanced by the early prac- 

 titioners seems to have diverted attention 

 from some more recently developed principles 

 which are of much importance. 

 He then goes on to observe: 

 Joseph Elkington, of Warwickshire, Eng- 

 land, about 100 years ago discovered that 

 tapping underground springs where the land 

 was wet would relieve and and improve the 

 soil, and this, the Elkington system, may 

 hence be considered the germ or beginning of 

 the present practice of thorough drainage. 



He admits, however, that catch-water 

 drains, made so as to intercept a flow of 

 water, have been in use from time immemor- 

 ial, and are described by the earliest writers. 

 Now, without dwelling upon the passage 

 wherein Virgil speaks of "drawing off from 

 the absorptive soil water there collected after 

 the manner of a marsh," I would ask what is 

 to be thought of the following passage, writ- 

 ten by Columella nearly 17 centuries before 

 Elkington was born. In his chapter on soils, 

 while treating of wet land, he observes: 



If it be wet, let the abundance of moisture 

 be first dried up by ditches. Of these we are 

 acquainted with two kinds, covered and 

 open. In compact and calcareous soils they 

 are left open; but where the ground is more 

 porous, some of them are left open and some 

 covered, so that the free vents of the latter 

 may discharge into the former. It is necessary 

 however, to raake the open ones wider at the 

 top and sloping and contracted at the bottom, 

 like inclined pan-tiles, for those with perpen- 

 dicular sides are soon damaged by water and 

 filled up by the falling in of the sides. In ad- 

 dition to this the covered ones should be sunk 

 three feet deep, and after being half filled with 

 small stones and coarse gravel, should be 

 made level with the surface by returning the 

 earth thrown out in digging them. If neither 

 stones nor gravel are convenient, then a bun- 

 dle of twigs twisted together like a rope 

 should be made of such thickness as to exact- 

 ly fit and fill the bottom of the ditch. This 

 should be stretched along the bottom and 

 cypress or pine branches, or any other kind 

 if these cannot be obtained, pressed down 

 above it and the soil thrown back over all, 

 first placing at the head and mouth of the 

 drain two large stones, one against each of 

 the sides, and a single stone across these after 

 the manner of a little bridge, in order to sup- 

 port the sides and keep them from filling in 

 and obstructing the ingress and egress of the 

 water. (Lib. 11, Cap. 2.) 



Pliny, in Lib. XVIII, Cap. 6, evidently has 

 this passage before him when he writes, a few 

 years afterwards: 



It is hijjhly advisable to cut up and drain a 

 Wetter field with ditches — moreover, in claj'ey 

 places, that the ditches should .be left open; 

 in looser soils, that they should be strength- 

 ened with supports or pantiles, or sunk with 

 sloping sides in order tliat they may not fall 

 in; that certain kinds should be covered and 

 led into others larger and more open, and, if 

 occasion required, filled in below with peb- 

 bles or gravel, also that the months of these 

 should be strengthened on each side with two 

 stone and covered ou top with another. 



Palladius also, nearly three centuries later 

 discusses the same subject in almost similar 

 language. Here we have assuredly something 

 more than "the germ" of underdraining. 



Silos and Ensilage. 

 Not a few of our farmers are prejudiced 

 against the so-called new process of preserv- 

 ing green forage by reason of the novelty of 

 the descriptive terms employed — "silo" and 

 "ensilage." Who ever heard of these be- 

 fore ? It will perhaps surprise them to learn 

 that the French word silo is identical in form 

 with the latin ablative sim, the suVistitution 

 of I for r being a cometymological change. 

 The word " siro" can in fact be traced back 

 to the Persian. In all these languages its 

 meaning is the same — an underground exca- 

 vation or pit used for the storage of grain or 

 perhaps forage. Columella speaks of grain 

 being in pits as " in certain transmarine pro- 

 vinces, where the ground hollowed out into 

 excavations resembling wells, which are call- 

 ed siros, receives back its own produce." (Lib. 

 I, Cap. 6: 15.) 



Varro also mentions these siros and states 

 that they were in use in Cappadocia and 

 111 race, and also formerly in Spain and around 

 Carthage. Their bottoms, he says were cov- 

 ered with straw, and every precaution taken 

 to prevent the access of moisture and air to 

 the grain until it was brought out for use, for 

 it was held that the weevil would not breed 

 where the air was excluded. He adds that 

 the wheat thus stored away kept 50 years and 

 millet upward of 100. (Lib. I, C/'ap. 57.) 



Pliny, referring to different methods of pre- 

 serving grain, and quoting from Varro, says : 

 They (corns) keep well-stored away in the 

 ear, but they are best preserved in trenches 

 which they call siros, as in Cappadocia and 

 Thrace and Spain and part of Africa. They 

 use every precaution to make these in a dry 

 soil, next strew them with straw, and then 

 store the grain away in them in the ear. If 

 no air penetrates the cereals thus stored it is 

 certain that they continue uninjured. Varro 

 is authority for saying that wheat tlnis buried 

 keeps 50 years and millet even 100; that the 

 bean and pulse smeared with ashes are pre- 

 served for a long time in olive oil casks, and 

 that the bean continued uninjured in a certain 

 cave of Ambracia from the reign of King 

 Pyrrhus even down to the piratical war of 

 Porapey the Great, a period of 220 years. — 

 Nat. Hist. Lib. XVIII. , Cap. 30. 



Several months ago an article appeared in 

 an agricultural paper warning farmers against 

 descending incantiously into a partially filled 

 silo in the morning. The writer stated that 

 the carbonic acid produced during the process 

 of filling collects over night, and that a laborer 

 near Sing Sing, N. Y., very nearly lost his life 

 by going down early in the morning into a 

 half-filled silo. After this it seems strange to 

 learn from Varro, in the days when Priestly 

 and oxygen were not, that whenever they 

 opened these siros .they waited for some time 

 before going down into them for fear of the 

 noxious air collected therein. 



It would appear, then, that the process of 

 ^ensilage (or ensirage) has claims to a very re- 

 spectable antiquity, and that it was used, only 

 for preserving grain, but very probably green 

 forage also, for the amount of carbonic acid 

 given off by grain as long as it was perfectly 

 preserved and germination prevented, would 

 scarcely have been sufficient to attract the at- 

 tention of the husbandman. This supposition 

 is greatly strengthened by a passage in Cur- 

 tius, a Latin historian of the first century. In 

 his 6th Book he remarks: 



The barbarians around Caucasus call these 



siros which they conceal so incougeniously 

 that none save those who dig them are able 

 to find them. In these their crops are stored 

 away. 



Now the word frwjes, which occurs in this 

 passage is a much broader term than the 

 word fnmientum, used by Varro or Pliny, or 

 ihan friiclus, the one employed by Columella. 

 The classical writers carefully distinguish be- 

 tween these several terras. According to 

 the best authorities, frumentum signifies 

 grain, (halm-fruit), while fructus denotes 

 more particularly tree fruits, and/r!«; {fruges) 

 "the fruits of the earth, or the produce of the 

 fields, pod fruits," &c. 



And finally, Ansonius Popma, an accurate 

 grammarian and scholar of the 16th century, 

 in his treatise on Farm Implements, ("De In- 

 strumento Fundi,'''') a work which concerns 

 itself chiefly with the ancient instruments of 

 husbandry, in referring to the subject of gra- 

 naries, and citing authorities, appears to use 

 the term fruges advisedly. In Chap. XV he 

 writes. 



Instead of these (granaries above ground) 

 in some provinces, siros are used, dug out in 

 the ground after the manner of caves or wells 

 for receiving and preserving the crops. 



It should be remarked in this connection 

 that the term silo was in common use in 

 French husbandry long before the days of 

 Goffort. For example, the pits in which root 

 crops, &c., are stored are called silos. See in 

 Cassanova's Pes Premiers Pas Dans' V Agri- 

 culture (edition of 1866,] page 112, under the 

 head of Silos, the passage beginning "Ban, 

 ce cas ilfauilra faire des silos. &c. 



Palladius speaks of a modification of this 

 process not altogether unworthy of the atten- 

 tion of the vine-dresser of to-day : 



The Greeks [so he stated] assert that you 

 can preserve the grapes on the vine even to 

 the beginning of spring if you will dig near 

 the plant, on the shady side, a ditch three feet 

 deep and two feet wide, and fill in the bottom 

 with gravel and strew reeds upon this. You 

 must entwine the branches full of fruit 

 among these reeds, binding together the un- 

 injured branches so that the soil cannot touch 

 them, and after filling up the trench with 

 earth cover it over in order to keep out the 

 rain. 



EDUCATION FOR FARMERS. 



To the average mind the word education is 

 limited in its definition to what one learns at 

 school, but that is altogether too narrow. 

 Education means growth, culture, develop- 

 ment, as well as the acquisitiou of knowledge 

 and knowledge again is not monopolized by 

 the schools ; indeed, one who knows only 

 what he learns at school is much more justly 

 entitled to the epithet of ignoramus than he 

 who, having no opportunity to attend school, 

 has been a diligent student of nature and of 

 men. There were wise men before letters 

 were invented, or schools established. Schools, 

 good schools, are excellent auxiliaries to edu- 

 cation, but they are nothing more. It is ad- 

 mitted by all that no amount of book-learning 

 will suffice to fit a young man for the duties of 

 a physician, a lawyer,or a clergyman, and the 

 idea that it would fit him for the profession 

 of agriculture is absurd. Yet each profession 

 lias its literature, which can be reached only 

 through the portal of the school or the aid of 

 private instructors, and the literature of each 

 profession is of prime importance to those 

 who would pursue successfully a profession. 



