'•^PHoro 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 18, 1911 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
jagg 
m .’** 
A GOOD JOB OF DRAINAGE. 
An Iowa Valley Stops Crying. 
Several inquiries have been made regarding the 
draining of some lands from a mile and a half to 
three miles southeast of Belle Plaine, Iowa, in the 
valley of the Iowa River.’ These are so-called “bot¬ 
tom” lands, and are not subject 
to overflow from the river in 
times of flood, except a small 
‘portion is some years flooded in 
times of very high water. The 
land is level, and where not too 
wet, very rich and fertile. In 
fact, it is the most productive 
land we have here, and is easy 
to work, not being subject to 
washing into ditches, etc., and 
the soil is the richest portions 
of the hills nearby, which has 
been carried down from rains 
for hundreds of years. 
Prof. Stevenson, of the Iowa 
Agricultural College, is authority 
for the statement that it appears 
that Iowa -streams have wider 
river bottoms than rivers in any 
other portion of the world, and 
consequently there are more bot¬ 
tom lands,' or alluvial soils, in 
Iowa than in most other States. 
They represent about eight per 
cent of Iowa’s soils. As would 
naturally be supposed from the 
origin of these soils, their chemi¬ 
cal composition is quite variable. 
Some of the bottom lands are 
sandy, others are clayey, and 
still others contain a large 
amount of gumbo. For this rea¬ 
son these soils present many 
problems for study. The soils 
along this portion of the Iowa 
River bottoms are of the two 
last descriptions, that is, inclined 
to be clayey and in some spots 
gumbo. Gumbo soil becomes 
good after being tiled thor¬ 
oughly. 
In this part of the Iowa River 
valley there is a succession of 
ponds and wet spots, which on 
the land to be improved, were 
not kept wet from the river, but 
from the rain water from the 
hills, because the river has built 
up a sort of natural levee or 
dike along its banks. The profile 
of a survey showed this fact 
very plainly, as the large/ tile 
went down 7.3 feet within 20 feet 
of the outlet into an old chan¬ 
nel of the river, while the 
average depth of the tile was 
only about four to 4.5 feet, al¬ 
though the fall allowed was only 
one-half inch to the 100 feet, and 
the level of the ground to the 
eye does not seem to vary much. 
Ihe cause of this condition is somewhat of a 
problem, but it is a problem for the geologist to de¬ 
termine. It may be a deserted channel of the river 
or a large creek to the west of Belle Plaine, but the 
fact is that there are depressions in the midst of the 
broad valley of the river which will average over a 
mile wide at this point, and in these depressions the 
flood water from the hills gathers, and the bottom 
of the depressions being of. a clayey or gumbo soil, 
the water accumulated there, and stood until removed 
by evaporation, or again tilled by rains. There were 
some ponds large and deep enough always to have 
water in them except in seasons unusually dry, such 
as the past Summer. One of the ponds drained cov- 
um 
AN IOWA GOLD MINE-THROUGH DRAINAGE. Fig 
LARGE TILE IN AN IOWA 
RIVER 
BOTTOM. Fig. 58 
ered about 20 acres, qnd was deep enough so that it 
almost always had water in it. Beyond it is a pond 
that covers about 50 acres, but is more shallow, and 
dries out when the first pond still has water in it. 
I here are many smaller ponds and wet, marshy spots, 
and fields by them kept too wet to cultivate, except in 
very dry years. Below the impervious pond bottoms 
are sand veins which are continually full of water. 
Various attempts have been made from time to 
time to drain these wet places and ponds, by means of 
open drains and ditches, but they were not successful. 
One of the main reasons for this is that the services 
of a surveyor were never secured, and thus the 
natural levee along the river bank was not discovered, 
and again, water will run 
rapidly ' through a smoot h, 
straight, large tile, laid on a uni¬ 
form fall, or grade, which same 
water would not run at all at 
the same grade or fall in a 
crooked, grass-obstructed open 
ditch. Then, with the large tile, 
the land can be farmed over, 
with no ditches to bother or 
break up the fields, and if care¬ 
fully laid, tile does not have to 
be cleaned out as ditches must 
be every season, to be even par¬ 
tially as effective as tile. Of 
course the first cost of tile is 
more than an open ditch, but 
progressive and up-to-date farm¬ 
ers believe that tile is far 
cheaper in the end if laid prop¬ 
erly, and for this, where the fall 
is so slight, the services of a 
good surveyor or civil engineer 
are essential. 
The survey was made last 
' March, and grade stakes set 
every 100 feet showing the depth 
of the ditch at that point. The 
surveyor also made a map or 
plat of the land. The wet land 
directly benefited amounts to at 
least 270 acres, of which about 
half has never been under cul¬ 
tivation, and the rest could be 
cultivated only in dry seasons. 
The land indirectly benefited 
amounts to as much more. Much 
of this land has been suitable 
only for wild hay and pasture, 
and not good pasture at that. 
Land has become more valuable 
in Iowa, but the value of the 
bottom lands just now is be¬ 
ginning to be appreciated. 
Several years ago Prof. Win. 
G. Raymond, dean of the Col¬ 
lege of Applied Science at the 
State University of Iowa, at 
Iowa City, Iowa, spent a day in 
Belle Plaine, Iowa, examining 
the proposed drainage project, 
and he gave it as his opinion at 
that time that the undertaking 
was feasible. The contract price 
for the tile was at the rate of 
12 J /> cents per foot and included 
all the labor of digging the ditch, 
levelling the bottom with straight 
edge and level according to the 
surveyor’s grade stakes, placing 
the ,tile and covering the tile 
with earth and filling the ditch. 
The tile was 12-inch straight tile, in two-foot lengths, 
which are more convenient to handle and lay better 
than the shorter lengths in the larger sizes. The 
“over-run” on this tile averaged almost two inches 
per tile. The lower end of the tile or outlet is a 1G- 
foot section of cement, six inches thick, over a thin 
sheet-iron pipe the same size as the tile, and at the 
