736 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



The Drainage Problem 



BY ALBERT R. BEYMER, Drainage Engineer, 

 Rocky Ford, Colo. 



Drainage dates back to a very early date. We have 

 records in history where drains were constructed by the As- 

 syrians as early as the eighth or ninth century B. C. Some of 

 the drains built at Rome in the seventh century B. C. are 

 still doing their work after a lapse of 2,500 years. With the 

 fall of the Roman Empire drainage suffered the same retro- 

 gression which befell learning and science and for a thousand 

 years it was forgotten. In the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 

 turies attention again came to be paid to drainage in a small 

 way, but not until about four hundred years later was drain- 

 age work done with any science. In about 1810 considerable 

 scientific drainage was done in England and the burned clay 

 drain tile introduced. Modern methods and engineering has 

 developed almost entirely since 1850, especially in the last 

 ten years, and still is in its infancy. The next twenty years 

 will see more land reclaimed by drainage than all time be- 

 fore. 



Drainage problems are not local or confined to any one 

 state. The Mississippi Valley states have the greatest areas 

 of wet land, while the irrigated states of the West have the 

 least; for example, in California there are 3,420 acres of wet 

 land; in Illinois, 925,000 acres; Indiana, 62,500 acres; Iowa, 

 030,000 acres ; Michigan. 2,947,439 acres ; Missouri, 2.439.600 

 acres; Nebraska, 512,100 acres; North Dakota, 200,000 acres; 

 South Dakota, 611,000 acres; Texas, 2,240,000 acres; Wash- 

 ington, 20,000 acres; Wisconsin, 2',360,000 acres; and in fact 

 all the states of the Union have more or less wet land that 

 needs only draining to make it worth from $40 to $1,000 

 per acre. 



Some of the most valuable land in the irrigated West 

 has gone to seepage and alkali on account of the excess 

 water used in irrigation and from the seepage from the main 

 canals. More and more each year is becoming worthless as 

 the ground becomes saturated with the irrigation water which 

 comes to the surface in places, causing the alkali to become 

 deposited on the soil as the water evaporates. The only 

 remedy for such a state of affairs is drainage. This must be 

 done intelligently and the work laid out by a competent drain- 

 age engineers. Even then the engineer should have had plenty 

 of practical experience. In our irrigated country, Colorado, 

 for example, the most common cause of seepage is gravel 

 <ftkes which are found in the irrigated valleys. These dikes 

 generally traverse the valley lengthwise and end abruptly. 

 The water flows faster through this gravel than through 

 the finer stratas and when these gravel dikes are cut off or 

 end, the water is there cut off and has no other outlet than 

 by rising to the surface, causing seepage. This water takes 

 up the salts of the soil which are deposited on the surface in 

 the form of alkali. 



A thorough investigation of the cause of the seepage is 

 essential to intelligent drainage. The underground stratas 

 must be prospected and the course of the flow of water cut 

 off. In the case of the gravel dikes the method of sinking a 

 well in the end of the gravel bed and connecting this well by 

 a tile line to proper outlet has proven very successful in a 

 great many places. This method was devised by Prof. C. G. 

 Elliott. Chief of Drainage Investigation, U. S. Agricultural 

 Dept. I have known two such wells to reclaim 80 acres of 

 very bad alkalied land which was so wet it would mire a 

 horse. The tile lines connecting the wells with the outlet 



were laid about eight feet deep at the well. This land today 

 is worth $300 per acre all on account of intelligent drainage. 

 In most countries where the volume of water is not too great, 

 drainage by tile lines is preferable to open ditches. The 

 first cost of the tile is of course much greater, but the main- 

 tenance (of the open ditch) in after years more than offsets 

 this cost. 



Great care should be used in the selection of tile. No 

 porous tile should be used. A few years ago farmers and 

 engineers recommended tile that water would percolate 

 through, but these were found to last only a year or so, 

 while hard burned tile have been known to be in good condi- 

 tion after a lapse of 100 years. Cement tile in particular 

 should be impervious to water, especially that containing alkali. 

 A cement tile that is made with a wet mixture of concrete 

 will last in any kind of alkali water. I have known cement 

 tile to be in fine condition after twenty years use. But the 

 secret is water-tightness, the drainage water entering through 

 the joints between the tile. Care should be taken in quicksand 

 and soft ground to protect the joints of the tile ; a concrete 

 band placed over the upper two-thirds of each joint is a 

 good sceheme. Crushed stone, gravel or a plank saddle 

 should be placed under the tile in such ground and a perfect 

 grade maintained. Straight lines are best with a silt box at 

 each angle. 



Roots very often obstruct the tile and wires should be 

 strung through the tile from one silt box to another. A 4x4 

 pine block 3 feet long, slightly sharpened at both ends and 

 driven full of spikes make an ideal cleaner when dragged 

 through the tile, but always commence at the lower end. 

 Dragging the cleaner in from the lower end a short distance, 

 then back to the lower end, going farther in each time until 

 the next silt box is reached. 



One tile line laid deep and in the proper place will do 

 more execution than a dozen laid at random. Under ordinary 

 conditions six feet can be reached without difficulty. I have 

 used a 10-ft. steel rod, sharpened at one end, for a number of 

 years, to prospect the underground stratas. This can be 

 worked down into the ground quite easily with the aid of a 

 little water now and then if there is no water on the surface. 



The cost of draining the seepage land of the West runs 

 from $10 to $25 per acre. The value of understanding the 

 fundamental principles of drainage, in preventing the increase 

 of seepage lands and the reclamation of those now affected, 

 can not be overestimated. Millions of dollars could have been 

 saved in the irrigated West if the injurious results of seepage 

 water and the methods of preventing them had been known 

 and heeded. Eighty per cent of the seepage lands in the 

 West and the swampy land of the Mississippi Valley and the 

 Southern States can be profitably drained. 



Reclamation by drainage has only begun. The drainage 

 of the southern swamps would be through large canals which 

 would be used to transport the products of the country to 

 the river harbors or railway stations. 



Holland is the most striking example of reclamation of 

 land by diking and draining. During the last three hundred 

 years something more than 200,000 acres of rich alluvial land 

 have been made productive. The magnitude of some of the 

 districts of America, which need draining, would be better 

 appreciated were the fact known that in the states of the 

 lower Mississippi Valley there are several drainage districts, 

 any one of which is from two to five times larger than all 

 the land reclaimed along the coast of Holland. Considering 

 all the land of the lower Mississippi Valley states which can 

 be profitably drained the area is more than fifty times greater 

 than the reclaimed lands of Holland. 



