270 ENGINEERING ON THE FARM 



solves one-half of the highway problems of the average 

 community. 



Objections raised by landowners. The need of drainage 

 is usually readily admitted by intelligent farmers, but the 

 cost of the work and the location of a ditch upon their land 

 frequently arouses opposition. 



The amount that can properly be spent on drainage work 

 depends upon the crops raised and their value. Lands suit- 

 able for orchards and gardens justify an expenditure of large 

 amounts per acre for improvements as compared with the 

 amount that might be profitably spent on lands suited only 

 to hay and field crops. The availability of markets and 

 the demand for certain products determine to a large extent 

 the advisability of constructing expensive drainage systems. 



It is not an uncommon thing for a landowner to fight a 

 drainage assessment on land which has a market value of 

 from $20 to $30 per acre, and almost at the same time buy 

 another tract of similar land at the market price, the idea 

 being that the acquisition of more land denotes greater pros- 

 perity. He does not realize that one acre of thoroughly 

 drained land might bring him a greater income, with one- 

 half the labor and expense of cultivation, than two acres of 

 und rained land, and that it could have been acquired at 

 one-third to one-half the cost of the other acre. Other 

 landowners oppose drainage improvements for the reason 

 that the ditch will be located on their land, even in the face 

 of the fact that from one-fourth to three-fourths of their 

 land produces only about one-half of what it should in the 

 ordinary year, on account of excessive moisture. Yet they 

 prefer to stand this loss rather than to have one-fiftieth to 

 one-eightieth of this land occupied by a ditch which would 

 drain the entire tract so thoroughly that it could be culti- 

 vated up to the banks of the ditch. 



Scientific planning and management. Once a landowner 

 or group of landowners has been convinced that a drainage 

 system is desirable and possible from a financial standpoint, 



