14: QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jaw., 1898. 
water is taken from the surface as distributed by means of lateral drains into 
the 12-in. main, and not permitted to run over the surface until it accumulates 
in a few places and thence finds its way into the main drain. 
THE COST OR PROFIT OF TILE-DRAINING. 
The question should be looked at in the following way :—If the farmer 
owns his land, he must pay the taxes, keep up the improvements, and procure 
the necessary help and implements for cultivating it. If there is land which 
he cultivates ata disadvantage because it is too wet to yield a full crop, and 
possibly yields none at all, proper drainage will cause this land to yield a full 
crop without the expenditure of any additional labour, seed, or capital, and the 
entire increase may. properly be regarded as the profit of drainage. A few 
examples which have come under the writer’s personal observation will help to 
emphasize these general statements. 
A 20-acre field which usually yielded only 25 bushels of corn per acre 
was tile-drained at a cost of £40, or £2 per acre. The yield after drainage 
was not less than 60 bushels of corn per acre, and the yield of other crops in 
the rotation was in proportion. This gain of 85 bushels at 1s. 3d. per bushel, 
the selling price of corn at that time, paid for the entire cost of the drainage 
the first year. 
_ A pond, previously waste land, was drained at a cost of 80s. per acre. It 
was broken and sown to millet, and the first crop paid the expense of under- 
drainage. A farm of 160 acres situated in an Illinois drainage district was taxed 
£1 per acre for the gencral outlet. It was bought for £6, subject to the tax 
for £1, costing the purchaser £7 an acre. ‘Tile-drainage and improvements 
cost £3 an acre, making the land cost £10 per acre. This farm was rented, 
and yielded the owner a rental of £1 per acre for four successive years, or 10 
per cent. on the entire investment. He was then offered £16 per acre for the 
farm and refused it.—Australian Field. 
