LAND DRAINAGE BY MEANS OF PUMPS. 7 
other States, that there exists at the present time a very active and 
widespread interest in this whole question. Between Muscatine, 
Iowa, and St. Louis there are in operation 10 separate plants, which 
take the drainage water from about 215,000 acres of land. Other 
plants are under construction or contract on five districts which have 
a total drainage area of 128,000 acres. The combined horsepower 
of the plants on the Mississippi is about 7,000. The cost of the 
district drainage improvements, including the pumping plants, totals 
a little over $4,000,000. 
The experience of those who undertake projects for pumping 
drainage water without previous experience in similar work or full and 
accurate knowledge of what has been accomplished elsewhere shows 
that invariably they greatly underestimate the magnitude and diffi- 
culties of the work contemplated. In this regard their experience is 
identical with that of those who have been pioneers in other forms of 
agricultural drainage work. As a consequence the first pumping 
plants were entirely inadequate in capacity, inefficient in operation, 
and largely a waste of the money invested in them. In numerous 
cases they have been added to or entirely replaced by the building of 
new plants. The officials having in charge the construction of the 
improvements on the newer districts have profited by the experience 
of the older districts, and have realized the folly of spending money 
for inadequate improvements. As a result nearly all of the more 
recent plants, with their ample and economical machinery, are models 
of convenient arrangement, permanence, and durability. The 
decreased cost of operation and the splendid drainage obtained have 
paid for the increased expenditure many times over. 
In the upper Mississippi Valley the various conditions prevailing, 
such as intensity and distribution of rainfall, length of growing 
season, and kinds of crops raised, differ widely from those obtaining 
near the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, leading to correspondingly 
wide variations in recent drainage practice. The former situation 
will here be taken up in detail, and the planning of districts, the 
requisite sizes and kinds of machinery, the first cost, and the cost of 
maintenance will be discussed. The situation in Louisiana is dealt 
with in a previous publication. 1 
DRAINAGE BY PUMPING IN THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
In Jllinois and the adjacent States the bottom lands which have 
been reclaimed by pumping are in the heart of the corn belt and 
possess a heavy, rich, black soil, mixed in places with a varying 
amount of sand. They are adjacent to thickly populated lands, and 
in some cases lie within a few miles of large towns. This proximity 
to some of the most fertile and highest priced agricultural lands in 
1 U. S. Dept. Agr., Bui. 71, The Wet Lands of Southern Louisiana and Their Drainage. 
