1007. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
the poor farmer who is at the mercy of a commission 
merchant. 
One of our number speculated in a horse and wagon 
and said he Would peddle his stuff in surrounding towns 
before he would send anything to New York, That was 
the greatest rig you would ever want to lay eyes on. 
The wagon and harness were passable, but the horse—* 
Which may have deserved the name of horse at oile time 
in his life—was nothing more than a skeleton, and 
when he laid down it required several of the able- 
bodied to get lllm on his feet again. Blit his OWiler 
thoUght tlie world of hint, alld Spoilt all dhy Saturday 
ahd Sunday brushing arid eleailiitg hint: We iiever 
found out where the horse came ffbfH; of fidtf mticii 
THE ORIGINAL STREAM. Fia. 233. 
was paid for it, but one thing we could all say, and 
that was that the horse had fallen into the hands of a 
kind master. After being cared for for three weeks, he 
was loaded lightly and started for Somerville, a town 
four miles away, and he surprised us all, for though 
the flesh was weak the spirit was strong, and he con¬ 
tinued to improve until he was as round as a barrel. 
We soon found a new source of getting rid of our 
produce, and this peddler was “a peach” at coming 
home every evening with empty bags. Nothing was 
ever known to he brought hack to the farm unless it 
was the old horse and wagon, and the driver’s pockets 
bulging out with bills. He canvassed from house to 
house, the old horse following him anywhere he went, 
so that lie lost no time. A good business was estab¬ 
lished in this way, and after he had all his own stuff 
sold, then turned to work and sold everything he could 
get from the rest of us on commission, allowing us 50 
or 60 cents per bushel on potatoes, Our “peddler” got 
hold of the “Winter supply” of his customers, making 
a note of the wants of each, and absolutely refused to 
hire his horse to anyone or even take anyone on his 
routes. 
In October we commenced to say farewell to the 
farm, some leaving with as much as one hundred dol¬ 
lars itl their pockets, while others barely had their train 
fare. Ill the latter cases the rumshops got it all. We 
could not say what our “peddler” made, but the writer 
understands he remained there for two years and got 
married, and now has three bouncing “kids,” two boys 
and a girl. 
The candid opinion of the undersigned is that any 
man who has a little “go” in him can make a fair living 
for himself and family out of two or three acres, and 
if he owns the latter, so much the better. Land is as 
AN ILLINOIS DRAINAGE DITCH. Fig. 234. 
cheap now as it ever will be, and I would advise any 
mechanic who has any inclination for country life to go 
ahead and buy a small farm. If he cannot buy it out¬ 
right, then pick out some reliable estate concern, and 
buy through them at terms to suit, thomas stewart. 
New York. _ 
“In a mam came to you and wanted your name on his 
book because you are ‘the most influential man in tbe 
neighborhood’ what are the chances that he would get it?” 
asks Brevities, page 416. I would toll him that if 1 were 
‘the most influential man in my neighborhood,’ I should 
he all the more careful as to what and whom I endorsed, 
and that I would use my Influence only to promote the best; 
in favor, only, of those things best calculated to advance 
the interests and the prosperity of my community, and 
never to aid private gain or personal advancement. 
Massachusetts. C. f. w. 
AN ILLINOIS DRAINAGE DITCH 
Wholesale Reclamation of Farm Land. 
There has just been completed in Bristol Township, 
Katie County, Illinois, one of the best and perhaps the 
costliest drainage ditches that have been carried through 
in northern Illinois by the operation o‘f the State 
Drainage law. This ditch is known as the Rob Roy, 
because it widens and deepens the creek of that name. 
At the top it is 25 feet wide, eight feet deep, and at the 
bottom the' channel varies from eight to ten feet. It is 
HOW about five miles long and eventually will be ex¬ 
tended to the' Fox River.- The cost was about $22,000. 
The ditch was dug by hauling across the country a 
powerful dredge h'oat,- td accommodate' which a big 
basin ^vas stooped brit of the channel of the creek 200 
feet south of the fo'wtfship hfl& The boat was floated 
and then worked itself tloWri Stream, Scooping out a 
ditch big enough to pass it along the entire length of 
the canal. 
The ditch so constructed will reclaim a little Ie§§ than 
one thousand acres of land in one of the most fertile 
sections of the Prairie State. This land was so wet that 
it was unfit for use, and could not be cultivated. I he 
creek was too shallow to afford an outlet for lines of 
drain tile that could have been laid to it. Tile sunk to 
the ordinary depth would reach the creek below its bot¬ 
tom. Now the tiling that has been laid since the com¬ 
pletion of the ditch is over two feet above the bottom 
of the canal. At one place along the canal there is an¬ 
other intersecting ditch which extends out into another 
low district, draining a great area of valuable land into 
the main ditch. This is known as No. 1 on No. 1. 
To show the great interest taken by the farmers 
whose land has been benefited by the ditch, some of the 
assessments are given. Mrs. Mary Ament, who owns 
a tract of 225 acres, paid an assessment of $3,000 to 
have the ditch built. On this ditch Mrs. Ament owns 
one little 12-acre, three-cornered tract of land that 
never has been plowed until two weeks ago. It is now 
as dry as any field of any farm in the State. The 
ENTRANCE OF TILE TO DITUII. Fig. 235. 
season is late, and conditions are not good for big 
crops, but it is estimated this new land will turn out 
60 bushels of corn to the acre, and that it will produce 
80 next year. The same may be said of all the other 
land on the Ament farm that the ditch was designed 
to benefit. Mrs. Lizzie Barnes has an 80-acre farm, 
and for the benefit to the wet land of the place she was 
assessed $900. Louis Nelson owns 225 acres near the 
intersection of the two ditches. His land is drained by 
the action of both these canals. His assessment amount¬ 
ed to $3,000. 
Tom Mack, Jr., was found preparing some of the 
land for a crop of corn. Lie rents 30 acres from Mrs. 
Barnes. He breaks up the drained land with a heavy 
sulky plow drawn by four horses. 1 he land is then 
gone over with a spreader-pulverizer, and then har¬ 
rowed twice, when it is ready for planting corn. One 
of the farmers who is now preparing his ground says 
that the land redeemed by the action of the Rob Roy 
ditch is the finest land to work with that one may find. 
The ground on the Barnes farm that had been drained 
by the ditch was plowed five years ago, but never 
cropped. It went back to nature, that had held it in a 
slough for centuries. It was an odd sight to see in 
this beautiful Illinois county, the name and fame of 
which as an agricultural community is known in almost 
every Middle State, land being broken for the first 
time. Virgin soil that never in the history of the world 
had been turned was now being broken by powerful 
teams, prepared for crops, and thus put to the use it 
had escaped from the beginning of the world. 
A walk along the ditch disclosed the fact that a great 
deal of tile draining had been done. The outlets of 
these tile drains could be found sticking out of the 
bank of the ditch. In some places the work was going 
on, and in still others the water could be seen pouring 
a constant stream of clear cold water into the drainage 
channel. At places the course of Rob Roy creek lay 
between rows of great willow trees. These were taken 
up by the roots in digging the ditch. At frequent places 
the ditch was spanned by bridges of substantial char- 
491 
acter. All of them were built by the drainage commis¬ 
sioners, and were included in the assessment of the 
farmer on whose land they were built. Similar ditches 
are now projected both north and south of the Rob Roy, 
Each will reclaim a like amount of valuable land, and 
the surplus will be carried to Fox River, a famous 
western stream, the history of which is rich in legend¬ 
ary lore, and which is destined to he a factor in the; 
projected deep-water way from the lake to the gulf.. 
It has got beyond the time when land owners allow this- 
wet, soggy soil to go untilled. Farm lands in Kane 
and adjoining counties bring all the way from $100 to> 
$150 an acre, and sometimes more. It costs dose to> 
VIRGIN LAND RECLAIMED BY DRAIN. Fig. 236. 
$30 an acre to have it drained, but scarcely more than 
two crops pay the entire expense. There are instances 
in which a single crop of corn has paid the entire ex¬ 
pense of drainage, and the improvement lasts for all 
time. Farmers are becoming less and less prone to fight 
the drainage projects. There are too many object les¬ 
sons to be seen. Improvements in drainage machinery 
have come with the increased interest in drainage dis¬ 
tricts, and where once it was next to an insurmountable 
task to start and carry through such an improvement, it 
is now comparatively easy. Figs. 233, 234, 235, 236 
and 237 show some of the results in detail. 
Illinois._J. L. GRAFF. 
KILLING WILD CHERRY TREES. 
What is the best way of killing young wild cherry trees 
and Osage orange that have grown to tree size? I have 
some fence rows that I wish to clean that are lined with 
wild cherry, ash, elm and maple. I intend to let one of 
these trees stand about every 25 feet to staple fence wire 
to. Which of the species do you think would stand the most 
abuse—that is—in driving staples into and in cutting hack 
from' time to time to prevent them from giving too much 
shade? What tree do you think would be the best to plant 
for this puroose? f. g. d. 
Beaver Co., I’a. 
Trees that sprout from the root are very difficult 
to kill, as 1 know by many years’ trial. The best suc¬ 
cess I ever had was with an Ailanthus tree that had 
been giving trouble for years. This tree was girdled in 
August, the bark stripped back and clown to the ground, 
and salt freely applied to the wound. The tree died 
quickly, and the sprouts as well, even those that had 
come up some distance from the tree. This is what I 
would suggest for the cherry and Osage orange trees 
complained of. The latter are very valuable for fence 
posts, the heart of the wood being as durable as any 
that I have ever tested. I have used hundreds of them 
FARM BRIDGE OVER DITCH. Fig. 237. 
on my old home farm in Kansas, and know no objec¬ 
tion to them except their crookedness and the extreme 
hardness of the wood. My opinion is that living fence 
posts are a delusion. I have seen this tried often, and 
rarely with satisfaction. It is positively objectionable 
to staple wires directly to trees because of them being 
overgrown and finally deeply imbedded in the trees, so 
that they cannot be moved or tightened. The best way 
that I know to fasten wire fence to trees is to nail nar¬ 
row boards up and down the trees and staple the wires 
to these strips. As the trees grow the strips will be 
pushed out with the bark, and may be renailed if need 
be. But the shade and roots from the trees will injure 
crops and more than overbalance the saving of the cost 
of good fence posts. The better plan, as it seems to 
me, is, to clear the fence row of all trees, brush, etc., 
and put up a good fence of locust, cedar or Osage 
orange posts. ,H, e, van deman. 
