ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN's ASSOCIATION. 6l 



uncertain and unsatisfactory. Drainage of such lands 

 immediately changes their character, making a profitable 

 and reliable soil, which dries easily and can be worked early 

 in the season — a necessity which yearly becomes more 

 apparent in raising and ripening the corn crop. There is 

 also in these soils great fertility which heretofore was locked 

 up but which by drainage becomes liberated, through the 

 action of the warm rains and air now penetrating the whole 

 mass. 



Soils which heretofore paid little or no profit are by 

 drainage made to pay large profits, and to pay the entire 

 expense of drainage in one to three crops of grain or 

 cultivated grasses. 



Drainage, to be effective, must be deep. Lands adjoin- 

 ing ditches are always saturated with water just as high or 

 near the surface as the water-line in the ditch. On lands 

 quite level the water often stands in ordinary shallow ditches 

 within a few inches of the surface, while in a two and a half 

 or three foot ditch it would stand much below the surface, 

 leaving the adjoining land for one and a half to two feet 

 below the surface free from water, in a condition to be 

 worked early, and almost certain of producing a fair crop 

 of grain or grass. 



My former practice in draining was to employ men 

 with spades or ditching machines ; either plan always leav- 

 ing an unsightly bank of earth on one side of the ditch to 

 prevent the surface water from flowing in on that side, and 

 making an excellent place to raise foul seeds to be distrib- 

 uted over the adjoining fields. Recently I find I can dig 

 wider, deeper and better ditches with a team and road 

 scraper, and cheaper than by any other method. My plan 

 is to plow the ground one furrow deep, the width of the 

 scraper, the entire length of the field to be ditched ; then 

 scrape this plowing out the entire length, commencing at 

 one end, carrying the dirt back several rods and spreading 

 it evenly on the land. The team continually travels in a 

 circle, carrying out a scraper full each time round. Then 

 again plow and scrape as before, and so on until the ditch 

 is from two and one-half to three feet deep, about three 

 feet wide at the bottom and five feet wide at the top, with 

 sloping sides, and the ground leveled on both sides, so that 

 it can be cultivated to the edge and that the surface water 

 is not prevented from running in. A man and team will 



