OP TflE
JVo.
Division
Range
Shelf.
I
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FARM DRAINAGE.
THE
PRINCIPLES, PROCESSES, AND EFFECTS DRAINING LAND
WITH STONES, WOOD, PLOWS, AND OPEN DITCHES, AND ESPECIALLY WITH • TILES ;
INOMTOING
TABLES OF RAIN-FALL,
EVAPORATION, FILTRATION, EXCAVATION, CAPACITY OF PIPES; COST AND NUMBER TO THE ACRE, OF TILES, &C., AC.,
AND MORE THAN IOO ILLUSTRATIONS. BY
HENRY F. FRENCH.
"READ, not to contradict and to confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh arid consider." — BACON.
" THE first Farmer was the first man, and all nobility rests on the possession and use of land."— EMERSON.
NEW-YORK:
ORANGE JUDD & COMPANY. 345 BROADWAY.
\
\
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,
BY HENEY F. F BENCH
In the ClerVs Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Southern District of New York.
OP MASSACHUSETTS,
A LOVEE OF AGRICULTURE, AND A PROGRESSIVE FARMER. WORDS AND WORKS ARE so WELL DEVOTED TO IMPROVE THE
OF THOSE WHO CULTIVATE THE EARTH, IBIS BOOK is INSCRIBED, AS A TESTIMONIAL OF RESPECT AND PERSONAL ESTEEM.
BT ira FRIEND AND BROTHER,
THE 4trraom.
f E E F A C E.
1 HE Agriculture of America has seemed to me to de- mand some light upon the subject of Drainage ; some work, which, with an exposition of the various theories, should give the simplest details of the practice, of draining land. This treatise is an attempt to answer that demand, and to give to the farmers of our country, at the same time, enough of scientific principles to satisfy intelligent inquiry, and plain and full directions for executing work in the field, according to the best known rules. It has been my endeavor to show what lands in America require drainage, and how to drain them best, at least expense ; to explain how the theories and the practice of the Old "World require modification for the cheaper lands, the dearer labor, and the various climate of the New ; and, finally, to suggest how, through improved implements and processes, the inventive genius of our country may make the brain assist and relieve the labor of the hand.
"With some hope that my humble labors, in a field so broad, may not have entirely failed of their object, this work is oifered to the attention of American farmers.
E, F. F.
THE PINES, EXETER, N. H., March, 1859.
LIST OF ENGEAYINGS.
PAGE.
Elkington's Mode 32, 88
Ditch and Bore-hole 85
Xeythorpe System 42
Theory of Springs 50-84
Plug Drainage 106, 107
Mole Plow 108
Wedge Drains Ill
Shoulder Drains Ill
Larch Tube 112
Pole Drain 118
Peat Tiles and Tool 113
Stone Drains 115-117
Draining Bricks . . .121
Bound Pipes 122
Horse-shoe Tile 124
Sole-Tile 125
Pipes and Collar 126
Flat-bottomed Pipe-Tile 129
Drains across Slope 150
training Irregular Strata 162
Belief Drains 162
Small Outlet 178
Large Outlet 179,180
Outlet, with Flap .181
Well, with Silt Basin 186
Peep-hole 188
Spring in Drained Field 189
Main of Two Tiles 194
Main of Several Tiles 194
Plan of Drained Field 195
Junction of Drains 196
Branch Pipe 19T
Daines' Tile Machine 209
Pratt's Tile Machine.. .. ...210
PAGE.
Tiles, laid well anddll 229
Square and Plumb-Level 229
Spirit Level 230
Staff and Target 231
Span, or A Level 232
Grading Trenches by Lines 233
Challoner's Level 235
Drain Spades 235
Spade with Spur. 236
Common Shovel and Spade 236
Long-handled Bound Shovel 237
Shovel Scoop .237
Irish Spade 238
Birmingham Spades. 240
Narrow Spades 242
English Bottoming Tools 243
Drawing and Pushing Scoops 244
Pipe-Layer 244
Pipe-Laying 245
Pick-axes 245
Drain Guage 246
Elkington's Auger 246
Fowler's Drain Plow 247
Pratt's Ditcher.... 249
Paul's Ditcher 250
Germination 277, 278
Land before Drainage and After 286
Heat in Wet Land 288
Cracking of Claya 325
Drainage of Cellar ,...355
Drainage of Barn Cellar 359
Plan of Band's Drainage 872
" H. V. French's Drainage 874
CONTENTS.
"HAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge. — Attention of Scientific Moil attracted to Drainage. — Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions. — Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views. — Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq. ; of Professor Mapes ; B. P. Johnson, Esq. ; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c. — Preju- dice against what is English. — Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and Abroad. — The Wants of our Farmers.
CHAPTER II.
HISTORY OF THE ART OF DRAINING.
Draining as old as the Deluge. — Roman Authors. — Walter Bligh in 1 650. — No thorough drainage till Smith, of Deanston. — No mention of Tiles in the "Compleat Body of Husbandry," 1758.— Tiles found 100 years old.— Elkington's System. — Johnstone's Puns and Peripatetics. — Draining Springs. — Bletonisra, or the Faculty of Perceiving Subterranean Water.— Deanston System. — Views of Mr. Parkes. — Keythorpe System. — Wharn- cliffe System. — Introduction of Tiles into America. — John Johnston, and Mr. Delafield, of New York.
CHAPTER III.
RAIN, EVAPORATION, AND FILTRATION.
Fertilizing Substances in Rain Water. — Amount of Rain Fall in United States ; in England. — Tables of Rain Fall. — Number of Rainy Days, and Quantity of Rain each Month.— Snow, how Computed as Water. — Pro- portion of Rain Evaporated. — What Quantity of Water Dry Soil will Hold. — Dew Point. — How Evaporation Cools Bodies. — Artificial Heat Under- ground.— Tables of Filtration and Evaporation. vii
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTEK IY.
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS — WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE.
What is High Land? — Accidents to Crops from Water. — Do Lands need Drainage in America ? — Springs. — Theory of Moisture, with Illustrations. — Water of Pressure. — Legal Rights as to Draining our Neighbor's Wells and Land. — What Lands require Drainage ? — Horace Greeley's Opinion. — Drainage more Necessary in America than in England ; Indications of too much Moisture. — Will Drainage Pay ?
CHAPTER Y.
VARIOUS METHODS OF DRAINAGE.
Open Ditches. — Slope of Banks. — Brush Drains. — Ridge and Furrow. — Plug- Draining. — Mole-Draining. — Mole-Plow. — Wedge and Shoulder Drains. — Larch Tubes.— Drains of Fence Rails, and Poles.— Peat Tiles.— Stone Drains Injured by Moles. — Downing's Giraffes. — Illustrations of Various Kinds of Stone Drains.
GHAPTEE YI.
DRAINAGE WITH TILES.
What are Drain-Tiles? — Forms of Tiles. — Pipes. — Horse-shoe Tiles. — Sole- Tiles.— Form of Water-Passage.— Collars and their Use. — Size of Pipes. — Velocity.— Friction. — Discharge of Water through Pipes.— Tables of Capacity. — How Water enters Tiles. — Deep Drains run soonest and longest. — Pressure of Water on Pipes. — Durability of Tile Drains. — Drain-Bricks 100 years old.
CHAPTER YII.
DIRECTION, DISTANCE, AND DEPTH OF DRAINS.
DIRECTION OF DRAINS. — Whence comes the Water ? — Inclination of Strata. — Drains across the Slope let Water out as well as Receive it. — Defence against Water from Higher Land.— Open Ditches. — Headers. — Silt-basins.
DISTANCE OF DRAINS. — Depends on Soil, Depth, Climate, Prices, System. — • Conclusions as to Distance.
DEPTH OF DRAINS.— Greatly Increases Cost.— Shallow Drains first tried in England. — 10,000 Miles of Shallow Drains laid in Scotland by way of Edu- cation.— Drains must be below Subsoil plow, and Frost. — Effect of Frost on Tiles and Aqueducts.
CON1ENTS. li
CHAPTER YIU.
ARRANGEMENT OF DRAINS.
Necessity of Systec;. — What Fall is Necessary. — American Examples.— Out- lets.— Wells and Relief-Pipes. — Peep-holes. — How to secure Outlets. — Gate to Exclude Back- Water. — Gratings and Screens to keep out Frogs, Snakes, Moles, &c. — Mains, Submains, and Minors, how placed. — Capacity of Pipes. — Mains of Two Tiles. — Junction of Drains. — Effect of Curves and Angles on Currents — Branch Pipes. — Draining into Wells or Swallow Holes. — Letter from Mr. Denton.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COST OF TILES TILE MACHINES.
Prices far too high ; Albany prices. — Length of Tiles. — Cost in Suffolk Co., England. — Waller's Machine. — Williams' Machine. — Cost of Tiles compared with Bricks. — Mr. Denton's Estimate of Cost.— Other Estimates. — Two- inch Tiles can be Made as Cheaply as Bricks. — Process of Rolling Tiles. — Tile Machines. — Descriptions of Daines'. — Pratt & Bro.'s.
CHAPTER X.
THE COST OF DRAINAGE.
Draining no more expensive than Fencing. — Engineering. — Guessing not accurate enough. — Slight Fall sufficient. — Instances. — Two Inches to One- Thousand Feet. — Cost of Excavation and Filling.— Narrow Tools required. — Tables of Cubic contents of Drains. — Cost of Drains on our own Farm.-— Cost of Tiles.— Weight and Freight of Tiles.— Cost of Outlets.— Cost of Collars. — Smaller Tiles used with Collars.— Number of Tiles to the Acre, with Tables. — Length of Tiles varies. — Number of Rods to the Acre at different Distances. — Final Estimate of Cost. — Comparative Cost of Tile- Drains ard Stone-Drains.
CHAPTER XL
DRAINING IMPLEMENTS.
Unreasonable Expectations about Draining Tools. — Levelling Instruments. — Guessing not Accurate. — Level by a Square. — Spirit Level. — Span, or A. Level.— Grading by Lines. — Boning-rod. — Challoner's Drain Level. — Spades and Shovels. — Long-handled Shovel. — Irish Spade, description and cut. — Bottoming Tools. — Narrow Spades. — English Bottoming Tools, — Pipe- layer. — Pipe-laying Illustrated. — Pickaxes. — Drain Gauge. — Drain Plows, and Ditch-Diggers. — Fowler's Drain Plow. — Pratt's Pitch-Digger. — McEwan's Drain Plow.— Rout/'s Drain Plow. 1*
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOE OPENING DRAINS AND LAYING
TILES.
Begin at the Outlet. — Use of Plows. — Leveling the Bottom. — Where to begin to lay Pipes. — Mode of Procedure. — Covering Pipes. — Securing Joints. — Filling.— Securing Outlets. — Plans.
CHAPTER XIH.
EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE UPON THE CONDITION OF THE SOIL.
Drainage deepens the Soil, and gives the roots a larger pasture. — Cobbett'a Lucerne 30 feet deep. — Mechi's Parsnips 13 feet long! — Drainage pro- motes Pulverization — Prevents Surface-Washing — Lengthens the Season — Prevents Freezing out — Dispenses with Open Ditches.— Saves 25 per cent, of Labor — Promotes absorption of Fertilizing Substances from the Air. — Supplies Air to the Roots. — Drains run before Rain ; so do some Springs. — Drainage warms the Soil. — Corn sprouts at 55° ; Rye on Ice. — Cold from Evaporation. - Heat will not pass downward in Water. — Count Rumford's Experiments with Hot Water on Ice. — Aeration of Soil by Drains.
CHAPTER XIY.
DRAINAGE ADAPTS THE SOIL TO GERMINATION AND VEGETATION.
Process of Germination. — Two Classes of Pores in Soils, illustrated by cuts. — Too much Water excludes Air, reduces Temperature — How much Air the Soil Contains. — Drainage Improves the Quality of Crops. — Drainage prevents Drought. — Drained Soils hold most Water — AlloTf Roots to go Deep. — Various Facts.
CHAPTER XY.
TEMPERATURE AS AFFECTED BY DRAINAGE.
Drainage Warms the Soil in Spring. — Heat cannot go down in Wet Land. — Drainage causes greater Deposit of Dew in Summer. — Dew warms Plants in Night, Cools them in the Morning Sun. — Drainage varies Temperature b-y. Lessening Evapocation.— What is Evaporation. — How it produces Cold. — Drained Land Freezes Deepest,. but Thaws. Soonest, and the Reasons
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER XYI.
POWER OF SOILS TO ABSORB AND RETAIN MOISTURE.
Why does not Drainage make the Land too Dry ? — Adhesive Attraction. — • The Finest Soils exert most Attraction. — How much Water different Soils hold by Attraction. — Capillary Attraction, illustrated.— Power to Imbibe Moisture from the Air. — Weight Absorbed by 1,000 Ibs. in 12 Hours. — Dew, Cause of. — Dew Point. — Cause of Frost. — Why Covering Plants Protects from Frost. — Dew Imparts Warmth. — Idea that the Moon Pro- motes Putrefaction. — Quantity of Dew.
CHAPTEE XYIL
INJURY OF LAND BY DRAINAGE.
Most Land cannot be Over-drained. — Nature a Deep drainer. — Over-draining of Peaty Soils.— Lincolnshire Fens Visit to them in 1857.— 56 Bushels of Wheat to the Acre. — Wet Meadows Subside by Drainage. — Conclusions.
CHAPTER XYIII.
OBSTRUCTION OF DRAINS.
Tiles will fill up, unless well laid. — Obstruction by Sand or Silt. — Obstruc- tions at the Outlet from Frogs, Moles, Action of Frost, and Cattle.— Obstruc- tion by Roots. — Willow, Ash, &c., trees capricious. — Roots enter Peren- nial Streams.— Obstruction by Mangold Wurtzel. — Obstruction by Per- Oxide of Iron. — How Prevented. — Obstructions by the Joints Filling. — No Danger with Two-Inch Pipes. — Water through the Pores. — Collars.— How to Detect Obstructions.
CHAPTER XIX.
DRAINAGE OF STIFF CLAYS.
Clay not impervious, or it could not be wet and dried.' — Puddling, what is. — Water will stand over Drains on Puddled Soil. — Cracking of Clays by Drying. — Drained Clays improve by time. — Passage of Water through Clay makes it permeable. — Experiment by Mr. Pettibone, of Vermont. — • Pressure of Water in Saturated Soil.
CHAPTER XX.
EFFECTS OF DRAINAGE ON STREAMS AND RIVERS. Drainage Hastens the Supply to the Streams, and thus creates Freshets.— Effect of Drainage on Meadows below; on Water Privileges.— Conflict of Manufacturing and Agricultural Interests. — English Opinions and Facts. — Uses of Drainage Water. — Irrigation — Drainage Water for Stock. —How used by Mr. MechL
Xll CONTENTS.
CHAPTEE XXI.
LEGISLATION DRAINAGE COMPANIES.
England protects her Farmers. — Meadows ruined by Corporation dams.— Old Mills often Nuisances. — Factory Reservoirs. — Flowage extends above
; level of Dam. — Rye and Derwent Drainage. — Give Steam for Water-Power.
1 — Right to Drain through land of others. — Right to natural flow of Water. — Laws of Mass. — Right to Flow ; why not to Drain ? — Land-drainage Companies in England. — Lincolnshire Fens. — Government Loans for Drainage.
CHAPTEE XXII.
DRAINAGE OF CELLARS.
Wet Cellars TJnhealthful. — Importance of Cellars in New England. — A Glance at the Garret, by way of Contrast. — Necessity of Drains. — Sketch of an Inundated Cellar. — Tiles best for Drains. — Best Plan of Cellar Drain; Illustration. — Cementing will not do.— Drainage of Barn Cellars. — Uses of them. — Actual Drainage of a very Bad Cellar described. — Drains Outside and Inside ; Illustration.
CHAPTEE XXIII.
DRAINAGE OF SWAMPS.
Vast Extent of Swamp Lands in the United States. — Their Soil. — Sources of their Moisture. — How to Drain them. — The Soil Subsides by Draining. — Catch-water Drains. — Springs. — Mr. Ruffin's Drainage in Virginia. — Is there Danger of Over-draining ?
CHAPTEE XXIY.
AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS IN DRAINAGE DR*AINAGE IN
IRELAND.
Statement of B. F. Nourse, of Maine. — Statement of Shedd and Edson, of Mass. — Statement of H. F. French, of New Hampshire. — Letter of Wm. Boyle, Albert Model Farm, Glasnevin, Ireland.
INDEX.
FARM DRAINAGE.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Why this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge. — Attention of Scientific Men attracted to Drainage. — Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions. — Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views. — Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq. ; of Professor Mapes ; B. P. Johnston, Esq. ; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c. — Preju- dice against what is English. — Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and Abroad. — The Wants of our Farmers.
A Book upon Farm Drainage ! What can a person find on such a subject to write a book about? A friend suggests, that in order to treat any one subject fully, it is necessary to know everything and speak of everything, because all knowledge is in some measure connected.
"With an earnest endeavor to clip the wings of imagin- ation, and to keep not only on the earth, but to burrow, like a mole or a sub-soiler, in it, with a painful apprehen- sion lest some technical term in Chemistry or Philosophy should falsely indicate that we make pretensions to the character of a scientific farmer, or some old phrase o: law-Latin should betray that we know something besides agriculture, and so, are not worthy of the confidence of practical men, we have, nevertheless, by some means, got together more than a bookfull of matter upon our subject.
13
14: FABH DRAINAGE.
Our publisher says our book must be so large, and no larger — and we all know that an author is but as a grass- hopper in the hands of his publisher, and ought to be very thankful to be allowed .to publish his book at all. So we have only to say, that if there is any chapter in this book not sufficiently elaborate, or any subject akin to that of drainage, that ought to have been embraced in our plan and is not, it is because we have not space for further expansion. The reader has our heartfelt sympathy, if it should happen that the very topic which most in- terests him, is entirely omitted, or imperfectly treated; and we can only advise him to write a book himself, by way of showing proper resentment, and put into it every- thing that everybody desires most to know.
A book that shall contain all that wre do not know on the subject of drainage, would be a valuable acquisition to agricultural literature, and we bespeak an early copy of it when published.
IRRIGATION is a subject closely connected with drainage, and, although it would require a volume of equal size with this to lay it properly before the American public, who know so little of water-meadows and liquid-manuring, and even of the artificial application of water to land in any way, we feel called upon for an apology for its omission.
Lieutenant Maury, whose name does honor to his nation over all the civilized world, and on whom the blessings of every navigator upon the great waters, are constantly showered, in a letter which we had the honor recently to receive from him, thus speaks of this subject :
" I was writing to a friend some months ago upon the subject of drainage in this country, and I am pleased to infer from your letter, that our opinions are somewhat similar. The climate of England is much more moist than this, though the amount of rain in many parts of this country, is much greater than the amount of rain there. It drizzles
INTKODUCTOE1 . 1 5
there more than it does here. Owing to the high dew point in England, but a small portion only — that is, com- paratively small — of the rain that falls can be evaporated again ; consequently, it remains in the soil until it is drained off. Here, on the other hand, the clouds pour it down, and the sun sucks it up right away, so that the perfection of drainage for this country would be the very reverse, almost, of the drainage in England. If, instead of leading the water off into the water-veins and streams of the country, as is there done, we could collect it in pools on the farm, so as to be used in time of drought for irrigation, then your system of drainage would be worth untold wealth. Of course, in low grounds, and all places where the atmosphere does not afford sufficient drainage by evaporation, the English plan will do very well, and much good may be done by a treatise which shall enable owners to reclaim or improve such places."
Indeed, the importance of this subject of drainage, seems all at once to have found universal acknowledge- ment throughout our country, not only from agriculturists, but from philosophers and men of general science.
Emerson, whose eagle glance, piercing beyond the sight of other men, recognizes in so-called accidental heroes the " Representative men" of the ages, and in what to others Beem but caprices and conventionalisms, the " Traits" of a nation, yet never overlooks the practical and every-day wants of man, in a recent address at Concord, Mass., the place of his residence, thus characteristically alludes to our subject :
" Concord is one of the oldest towns in the country — • far on now in its third century. The Select-men have once in five years perambulated its bounds, and yet, in this year, a very large quantity of land 'has been dis- covered and added to the agricultural land, and without a murmur of complaint from any neighbor. By drainage,
16 FAKM DRAINAGE.
we have gone to the subsoil, and we have a Concord under Concord, a Middlesex under Middlesex, and a basement- story of Massachusetts more valuable than all the super- structure. Tiles are political economists. They are so many Young- Americans announcing a better era, and a day of fat things."
John H. Klippart, Esq., the learned Secretary of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, expresses his opinion upon the importance of our subject in his own State, in this emphatic language :
" The agriculture of Ohio can make no farther marked progress until a good system of under-drainage has been adopted."
A writer in the Country Gentleman, from Ashtabula County, Ohio, says : — " One of two things must be done by us here. Clay predominates in our soil, and we must under-drain our land, or sell and move west."
Professor Mapes, of New York, under date of January 17, 1859, says of under-draining :
" I do not believe that farming can be pursued with full profit without it. It would seem to be no longer a question. The experience of England, in the absence of all other proof, would be sufficient to show that capital may be invested more safely in under-draining, than in any other way ; for, after the expenditure of many millions by English farmers in this way, it has been clearly proved that their increased profit, arising from this cause alone, is sufficient to pay the total expense in full, with interest, within twenty years, thus leaving their farms increased permanently to the amount of the total cost, while the income is augmented in a still greater ratio. It is quite doubtful whether England could at this time sustain her increased population, if it were not for her system of thorough-drainage. In my own practice, the result has been such as to convince me of its advantages, and I
INTRODUCTORY. 17
should be unwilling to enter into any new cultivation without thorough drainage."
E. P. Johnson, Secretary of the New York Board of Agriculture, in answer to some inquiries upon the subject of drainage with tiles, writes us, under date of December, 1858, as follows :
"I have given much time and attention to the subject of drainage, having deemed it all-important to the im- provement of the farms of our State. I am well satisfied, from a careful examination in England, as well as from my observation in this country, that tiles are far pre- ferable to any other material that I know of for drains, and this is the opinion of all those who have engaged extensively in the work in this State, so far as I have information. It is gratifying to be assured, that during the year past, there has been probably more land-draining than during any previous year, showing the deep interest which is taken in this all-important work, so indispensable to the success of the farmer."
It is ascertained, by inquiry at the Land Office, that more than 52,000,000 acres of swamp and overflowed lands have been selected under the Acts of March 2d, 1849, and September 28th, 1850, from the dates of those grants to September, 1856 ; and it is estimated that, when the grants shall have been entirely adjusted, they will amount to 60,000,000 acres.
Grants of these lands have been made by Congress, from the public domain, gratuitously, to the States in which they lie, upon the idea that they were not only worthless to the Government, but dangerous to the health of the neighboring inhabitants, with the hope that the State governments might take measures to reclaim them for cultivation, or, at least, render them harmless, by the Removal of their surplus water.
Governor Wright, of Indiana, in a public address,
18 FARM DRAINAGE.
estimated the marshy lands of that State at 3,000,000 acres. " These lands," he says, "were generally avoided by early settlers, as being comparatively worthless ; but, when drained, they become eminently fertile." He further says : " I know a farm of 160 acres, which was sold five years ago for $500, that by an expenditure of less than $200, in draining and ditching, has been so improved, that the owner has refused for it an offer of $3,000."
At the meeting of the United States Agricultural Society, at Washington, in January, 1857, Mr. G. W. P. Custis spoke in connection with the great importance of this subject, of the vast quantity of soil — the richest con- ceivable— now lying waste, to the extent of 100,000 acres, along the banks of the Lower Potomac, and which he denominates by the old Virginia title of pocoson. The fertility of this reclaimable swamp he reports to be astonishing; and he has corroborated the opinion by experiments which confounded every beholder. " These lands on our time-honored river," he says, " if brought into use, would supply provisions at half the present cost, and would in other respects prove of the greatest ad- vantage."
The drainage of highways arid walks, was noted as a topic kindred to our subject, although belonging more properly perhaps, to the drainage of towns and to land- scape-gardening, than to farm drainage. This, too, was found to be beyond the scope of our proposed treatise, and has been left to some abler hand.
So, too, the whole subject of reclaiming lands from the sea, and from rivers, by embankment, and the drainage of lakes and ponds, which at a future day must attract great attention in this country, has proved quite too exten- sive to be treated here. The day will soon come, when on our Atlantic coast, the ocean waves will be stayed, and all along our great rivers, the Spring floods, and the
INTRODUCTORY. 1 9
Summer freshets, will be held within artificial barriers, and the enclosed lands be kept dry by engines propelled by steam, or some more efficient or economical agent.
The half million acres of fen-land in Lincolnshire, pro- ducing the heaviest wheat crops in England ; and Harlaem Lake, in Holland, with its 40,000 acres of fertile land, far below the tides, and once covered with many feet of water, are examples of what science and well-directed labor may accomplish. But this department of drainage demands the skill of scientific engineers, and the employ- ment of combined capital and effort, beyond the means of American farmers ; and had we ability to treat it pro- perly, would afford matter rather of pleasing speculation, than of practical utility to agricultural readers.
With a reckless expenditure of paper and ink, we had already prepared chapters upon several topics, which, though not essential to farm-drainage, were as near to our subject as the minister usually is limited in preaching, or the lawyer in argument ; but conformity to the Procrus- tean bed, in whose sheets we had in advance stipulated to sleep, cost us the amputation of a few of our least im- portant heads.
" Don't be too English," suggests a very wise and politic friend. We are fully aware of the prejudice which still exists in many minds in our country, against what is peculiarly English. Because, forsooth, our good Mother England, towards a century ago, like most fond mothers, thought her transatlantic daughter quite too young and inexperienced to set up an establishment and manage it for herself, and drove her into wasteful experiments of wholesale tea-making in Boston harbor, by way of illus- trating her capacity of entertaining company from beyond seas ; and because, near half a century ago, we had some sharp words, spoken not through the mouths of prophets and sages, but through the mouths of great guns, touching
20 FAKM DRAINAGE.
the right of cur venerated parent to examine the internal economy of our merchant-ships on the sea — because of reminiscences like these, we are to forswear all that is English ! And so we may claim no kindred in literature with Shakspeare and Milton, in jurisprudence, with Bacon and Mansfield, in statesmanship, with Pitt and Fox !
"Whence came the spirit of independence, the fearless love of liberty of which we boast, but from our English blood? Whence came our love of territorial extension, our national ambition, exhibited under the affectionate name of annexation? Does not this velvet paw writh which we softly play with our neighbors' heads, conceal some long, crooked talons, which tell of the ancestral blood of the British Lion ?
The legislature of a New England State, not many years ago, appointed a committee to revise its statutes. This committee had a pious horror of all dead languages, and a patriotic fear of paying too high a compliment to England, and so reported that all proceedings in courts of ""aw should be in the American language! An inquiry by a waggish member, whether the committee intended to allow proceedings to be in any one of the three hundred Indian dialects, restored to the English language its appropriate name.
Though from some of our national traits, we might possibly be supposed to have sprung from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Cadmus, yet the uniform record of all American families which goes back to the " three brothers who came over from England," contradicts this theory, and connects us by blood and lineage with that country.
Indeed, we can hardly consent to sell our birthright for BO poor a mess of pottage as this petty jealousy offers. A teachable spirit in matters of which we are ignorant, is usually as profitable and respectable as abundant self-
INTKODUCTOKY. 21
conceit, and rendering to Caesar the things that are Csesar's, quite as honest as to pocket the coin as our own, notwith- standing the " image and superscription."
"We make frequent reference to English writers and to English opinions upon our subject, because drainage is understood and practiced better in England than any- where else in the world, and because by personal inspec- tion of drainage-works there, and personal acquaintance and correspondence with some of the most successful drainers in that country, we feel some confidence of ability to apply English principles to American soil and climate.
To J. Bailey Denton, Engineer of the General Land Drainage Company, and one. of the most distinguished practical and scientific drainers in England, we wish publicly to acknowledge our obligations for personal favors shown us in the preparation of our work.
We claim no great praise of originality in what is here offered to the public. Wherever we have found a person of whom we could learn anything, in this or other coun- tries, we have endeavored to profit by his teachings, and whenever the language of another, in book or journal, has been found to express forcibly an idea which we deemed worthy of adoption, we have given full credit for both thought and words.
Our friends, Messrs. Shedd and Edson, of Boston, whose experience as draining engineers. entitles them to a high rank among American authorities, have been in constant communication with us, throughout our labors. The chapter upon Evaporation, Rain fall, &c., which we deem of great value as a contribution to science in general, will be seen to be in part credited to them, as are also the tables showing the discharge of water through pipes of various capacity.
Drainage is a new subject in America, not well under-
22 FARM DRAINAGE.
stood, and we .have no man, it is believed, peculiarly fitted to teach its theory and practice ; yet the farmers every- where are awake to its importance, and are eagerly seeking for information on the subject. Many are already engaged in the endeavor to drain their lands, conscious of their want of the requisite knowledge to effect their object in a profitable manner, while others are going resolutely forward, in violation of all correct principles, wasting their labor, unconscious even of their ignorance.
In New England, we have determined to dry the springy hill sides, and so lengthen our seasons for labor ; we have found, too, in the valleys and swamps, the soil which has been washed from our mountains, and intend to avail our- selves of its fertility in the best manner practicable. On the prairies of the great West, large tracts are found just a little too wet for the best crops of corn and wheat, and the inquiry is anxiously made, how can we be rid of this surplus water.
There is no treatise, English or American, which meets the wants of our people. In England, it is true, land drainage is already reduced to a science ; but their system has grown up by degrees, the first principles being now too familiar to be at all discussed, and the points now in controversy there, quite beyond the comprehension of be- ginners. America wants a treatise which shall be ele- mentary, as well as thorough — that shall teach the alphabet, as well as the transcendentalism, of draining land — that shall tell the man who never saw a drain-tile what thorough drainage is, and shall also suggest to those who have studied the subject in English books only, the differences in climate and soil, in the prices of labor and of products, which must modify our operations.
With some practical experience on his own land, witli careful observation in Europe and in America of the details of drainage operations, with a somewhat critical
INTRODUCTORY. 23
examination of published books and papers on all topics connected with the general subject, the author has endea- vored to turn the leisure hours of a laborious professional life to gome account for the farmer. Although, as the lawyers say, the "presumptions" are, perhaps, strongly against the idea, yet a professional man may understand practical farming. The profession of the law has made some valuable contributions to agricultural literature. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, author of the "Boke of Husban- drie," published in 1523, was Chief Justice of the Com- mon Pleas, and, as he says, an " experyenced farmer of more than 40 years." The author of that charming little book, " Talpa," it is said, is also a lawyer, and there is such wisdom in the idea, so well expressed by Emerson as a fact, that we commend it by way of consolation to men of all the learned professions : " All of us keep the farm in reserve, as an asylum where to hide our poverty and our solitude, if we do not succeed in society."
Besides the prejudice against what is foreign, we meet everywhere the prejudice against what is new, though far less in this country than in England. " E"o longer ago than 1835," says the Quarterly Review, " Sir Robert Peel presented a Farmers' Club, at Tamworth, with two iron plows of the best construction. On his next visit, the old plows, with the wooden mould-boards, were again at work. ' Sir,' said a member of the club, ' we tried the iron, and we be all of one mind, that they make the weeds grow !' "
American farmers have no such ignorant prejudice as this. They err rather by having too much faith in them- selves, than by having too little in the idea of progress, and will be more likely to " go ahead " in the wrong direc- tion, than to remain quiet in their old position.
24 FARM DRAINAGE.
CHAPTER H.
HISTORY OF THE ART OF DRAINING.
Draining as Old as the Deluge. — Roman Authors. — Walter Bligh in 1650. — No thorough drainage till Smith of Deaaston. — No mention of tiles in the " Compleat Body of Husbandry," 1758. — Tiles found 100 years old. — Elkington's System. — Johnstone's Puns and Peripatetics. — Draining Springs. — Bletonism, or the Faculty of Perceiving Subterranean Water. — Deanston System. — Views of Mr. Parkes. — Keythorpe System. — Wharn- cliffe System. — Introduction of tiles into America. — John Johnston, and Mr. Delafield, of New York.
THE art of removing superfluous water from land, must be as ancient as the art of cultivation ; and from the time when Noah and his family anxiously watched the sub- siding of the waters into their appropriate channels, to the present, men must have felt the ill effects of too much water, and adopted means more or less effective, to re- move it.
The Roman writers upon agriculture, Cato, Columella, and Pliny, all mention draining, and some of them give minute directions for forming drains with stories, branches of trees, and straw. Palladius, in his De Aquw Ductibus, mentions earthen-ware tubes, used however for aque- ducts, rather for conveying water from place to place, than for draining lands for agriculture.
Nothing, however, like the systematic drainage of the present day, seems to have been conceived of in England, until about 1650, when Captain Walter Bligh published a work, which is interesting, as embodying and boldly
HISTORY OF .DRAINING. 25
advocating the theory of deep-drainage as applied by him to water-meadows and swamps, and as applicable to the drainage of all other moist lands.
We give from the 7th volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, in the language of that eminent advocate of deep-drainage, Josiah Parkes, an account of this rare book, and of the principles which it advocates, as a fitting introduction to the more modern and more perfect system of thorough drainage :
" The author of this work was a Captain Walter Bligh, signing himself, l A Lover of Ingenuity.' It is quaintly entitled, l The English Improver Improved : or, the Survey of Husbandry Surveyed ;' with several prefaces, but specially addressed to ' The Right Honorable the Lord General Cromwell, and the Right Honorable the Lord President, and the rest of the Honorable Society of the Council of State.' In his instructions for forming the flooding and draining trenches of water- meadows, the author says of the latter: — 'And for thy drayning- trench, it must be made so deep, that it goe to the bottom of the cold spe\ving moyst water, that feeds the flagg and the rush; for the wide- nesse of it, use thine own liberty, but be sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottom of it, which must be so low as any moysture lyeth, which moysture usually lyeth under the over and second swarth of the earth, in some gravel or sand, or else, where some greater stones are mixt with clay, under which thou must goe half one spade's graft deep at least. Yea, suppose this corruption that feeds and nourish eth the rush or flagg, should lie a yard or four-foot deepe ; to the bottom of it thou must goe, if ever thou wilt drayn it to purpose, or make the utmost advantage of either floating or drayning, without which the water cannot have its kindly operation ; for though the water fatten naturally, yet still this coldnesse, and moysture lies gnawing within, and not being taken clean away, it eates out what the water fattens ; and so the goodneese of the water is, as it were, riddled, screened, and strained out into the land, leaving the richriesse and the leancsse sliding away from it.' In another place, he replies to the objectors of floating, that it will breed the rush, the flagg, and mare- blab : c only make thy drayning-trenches deep enough, and not too far off thy floating course, and I'le warrant it they drayn away that under- moysture, fylth, and venom as aforesaid, that maintains them; and then believe me. or deny Scripture, which I hope thou doust not, as
26 FARM DKAINAGE.
-Bildad said unto Job, " Can the rush grow without mire, or the flagg without water ?" Job viii. 12. That interrogation plainly showes that the rush cannot grow, the water being taken from the root ; for it is not the moystnesse upon the surface of the land, for then every shower should increase the rush, but it is that which lieth at the root, which, drayned away at the bottom, leaves it naked and barren of relief.'
" The author frequently returns to this charge, explaining over and over again the necessity of removing what we call bottom-water, and which he well designates as * filth and venom.'
c; In the course of my operations as a drainer, I have met with, or heard of, so many instances of swamp-drainage, executed precisely according to the plans of this author, and sometimes in a superior manner — the conduits being formed of walling stone, at a period long antecedent to the memory of the living — that I am disposed to consider the practice of deep drainage to have originated with Captain Bligh, and to have been preserved by imitators in various parts of the country; since a book, which passed through three editions in the time of the Commonwealth, must necessarily have had an extensive circu- lation, and enjoyed a high renown. Several complimentary autograph verses, written by some imitators and admirers of the ingenious Bligh, are bound up with the volume. I find also, not unfrequently, very ancient deep drains in arable fields, and some of them still in good con- dition ; and in a case or two, I have met with several ancient drains six feet deep, placed parallel with each other, but at so great a distance asunder, as not to have commanded a perfect drainage of the inter- mediate space. The author from whom I have so largely quoted, is the earliest known to me, who has had the sagacity to distinguish between the transient effect of rain, and the constant action of stag- nant bottom-water in maintaining land in a wet condition."
Dr. Shier, editor of " Davy's Agricultural Chemistry," says, " The history of drainage in Britain may be briefly told. Till the time of Smith, of Deanston, draining was generally regarded as the means of freeing the land from springs, oozes, and under-water, and it was applied only to lands palpably wet, and producing rushes and other aquatic plants."
He then proceeds to give the principles of Elkington, Smith, Parkes, and other modern writers, of which wo shall speak more at large.
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 2?
The work published in England, not far from Captain Bligh's time, under the title " A Complete Body of Hus- bandry," undertakes to give directions for all sorts of farm- ing processes. A Second Edition, in four octavo volumes, of which we have a copy, was published in 1758. It pro- fesses to treat of " Draining in General," and then of the draining of boggy land and of fens, but gives no intima- tion that any other lands require drainage.
Directions are given for filling drains with " rough stones," to be covered with refuse wood, and over that, some of the earth that was thrown out in digging. " By this means," says the writer, " a passage will be left free for all the water the springs yield, and there will be none of these great openings upon the surface."
He thus describes a method practiced in Oxfordshire of draining with bushes :
'• Let the trenches be cut deeper than otherwise, suppose three foot deep, and two foot over. As soon as they are made, let the bottoms of them be covered with fresh-cut blackthorn bushes. Upon these, throw in a quantity of large refuse stones : over these let there be another covering of straw, and upon this, some of the earth, so as to make the surface level with the rest. These trenches will always keep open."
No mention whatever is made in this elaborate treatise of tiles of any kind, which affords very strong evidence that they were not in use for drainage at that time. In a note, however, to Stephen's " Draining and Irrigation," we find the following statement and opinion :
11 In draining the park at Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire, about three years ago, some drains, made with tiles, were found eight feet below the surface of the ground. The tiles were similar to what are now used, and in as good a state of preservation as when first laid, although they must havj remained there above one hundred years."
ELKINGTON'S SYSTEM OF DRAINAGE.
It appears, that, in 1795, the British Parliament, at the request of the BoarcJ of Agriculture, voted to. Joseph
28 FARM DRAINAGE.
Elkington a reward of £1000, for his valuable discoveries in the drainage of. land. Joseph Elkington was a War- wickshire farmer, and Mr. Gisborne says he was a man of considerable genius, but he had the misfortune to be illit- erate. His discovery had created such a sensation in tlie agricultural world, that it was thought important to record its details ; and, as Elkingtoirs health was extremely pre- carious, the Board resolved to send Mr. John Johnstone to visit, in company with him, his principal works of drainage, and to transmit to posterity the benefits of his knowledge.
Accordingly, Mr. John Johnstone, having carefully studied Elkington's system, under its author, in the peri- patetic method, undertook, like Plato, to record the say- ings of his master in science, and produced a work, enti- tled, " An Account of the Most Approved Mode of Drain- ing Land, According to the System Practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington." It was published at Edinburgh, in 1797. Mr. Gisborne says, that Elkington found in John- stone " a very inefficient exponent of his opinions, and of the principles on which he conducted his works."
" Every one." says he, " who reads the work, which is popularly called ' Elkington on Draining.' should be aware, that it is not Joseph who thinks and speaks therein, but John, who tells his readers what, according to his ideas, Joseph would have thought and spoken."
Again —
ci Johnstone, measured by general capacity, is a very shallow drainer ! He delights in exceptional cases, of which he may have met with some, but of which, we suspect the great majority to be products of his own ingenuity, and to be put forward, with a view to display the ability with which he could encounter them."
Johnstone's report seems to have undergone several re- visions, and to have been enlarged and reproduced in other forms than the original, for we find, that, in 1 838, it was published in the United States, at Petersburg, Yir-
HISTOKY OF DRAINING. 29
ginia, as a supplement to the Farmers Register, by Edmund Kuffin, Esq., editor, a reprint "from the third British Edition, revised and enlarged;" under the follow- ing title :
"A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Draining Land, &c.. according to the most approved methods, and adapted to the various situations and soils of England and Scotland : also on sea, river, and lake embankment*, formation of ponds and artificial pieces of water, with an appendix, containing hints and directions for the culture and improvement of bog, morass, moor, and other unproductive ground, after being drained \ the whole illustrated by plans and sections appli- cable to the various situations and forms of construction. Inscribed to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, by John Johnstone, Land Surveyor."
Mr. Ruffin certainly deserves great credit for his enter- prise in republishing in America, at so early a day, a work of which an English copy could not be purchased for less than six dollars, as well as for his zealous labors ever since in the cause of agriculture.
There is, in this work of Johnstone, a quaintness which ho, probably, did not learn from Elkington, and which ill astrates the character of his mind as one not peculiarly adapted to a plain and practical history of another man's system and labors. For instance, in speaking of the arrangement of his subject into parts, he says, in a note, " The subject being closely connected with cutting, section is held as a better division than chapter !"
Again, he speaks of embanking, and says he lias some experience on that head. Then he a.dds the following note, lest a possible pun should be lost : " An embank- ment is often termed a ' head,' as it makes head, or resist- ance, against the encroachment of high tide or river floods."
There is some danger that a mind which scents a whim- sical analogy of meaning like this, may entirely lose the main track of pursuit ; but Johnstone's special mission
30 FARM DRAINAGE.
was to ascertain Elkington's method, and his account of it is, therefore, the best authority we have on the subject.
He gives the following statement of Elkington's discov- ery :
" In the year 1763, Elkington was left by his father in the possession of a farm called Prince-Thorp, in the parish of Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, and county of Warwick. The soil of this farm was so poor, and, in many places, so extremely wet, that it was the cause of rotting several hundreds of his sheep, which first induced him, if possible, to drain it This he begun to do, in 1764. in a field of wet clay soil, rendered almost a swamp, or shaking bog. by the springs which issued from an adjoining bank of gravel and sand, and overflowed the surface of the ground below. To drain this field, which was of considerable extent, he cut a trench about four or five feet deep, a little below the upper side of the bog, where the wetness began to make its appearance • and, after proceeding with it in this direction and at this depth, he found it did not reach the principal body of subjacent water from which the evil arose. On perceiving this, he was at a loss how to proceed, when one of his ser- vants camo to the field with an iron croiu, or bar, for the purpose of making holes for fixing sheep hurdles in an adjoining part of the farm, as represented on the plan. Having a suspicion that his drain was not deep enough, and desirous to know what strata lay under it. he took the iron bar, and having forced it down about four feet below the bottom of the trench, on pulling it out, to his astonishment, a great quantity of water burst up through the hole he had thus made, and ran along the drain. This led him to the knowledge, that wetness may be often produced by water confined farther below the surface of the ground than it was possible for the usual depth of drains to reach, and that an auger would be a useful instrument to apply in such cases. Thus, chance was the parent of this discovery, as she often is of other useful aris • and fortunate it is for society, when such accidents happen to those who have sense and judgment to avail themselves of hints thus fortuitously given. In this manner he soon accomplished the drainage o ' his whole farm, and rendered it so perfectly dry and sound, that none of h^s flock was ever after afFecto4 with disease.
" By the success of this experiment, Mr. Elkington's fame, as a drainer, was quickly Mid widely extended ; and. after having success- fully drained several fa-rms in his neighborhood, he was, at last, very generally employed for tfiat purpose in various parts of the kingdom, till about thirty years ago, when the country had the melancholy cause
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 31
to regret his loss. From his long practice and experience, he became BO successful in the works he undertook, and so skillful in judging of the internal strata of the earth arid the nature of springs, that, with remark- able precision, he could ascertain where to find water, and trace the course of springs that made no appearance on the surface of the ground. During his practice of more than thirty years, he drained in various parts of England, particularly in the midland counties, many thousand acres of land, which, from being originally of little or no value, soon became as useful as any in the kingdom, by producing the most valu- able kinds of grain and feeding the best and healthiest species of stock. Many have erroneously entertained an idea that Elkington's skill lay solely in applying the auger for the tapping of 'springs, without attach- ing any merit to his method of conducting the drains. The accidental cir- cumstance above stated gave him the first notion of using an auger, and directed his attention to the profession and practice of draining, in the course of which he made various useful discoveries, as will be after- wards explained. With regard to the use of the auger, though there is every reason to believe that he was led to employ that instrument from the circumstance already stated, and did not derive it from any other source of intelligence, yet there is no doubt that others might have hit upon the same idea without being indebted for it to him. It has hap- pened, that, in attempts to discover mines by boring, springs have been tapped, and ground thereby drained, either by letting the water down, or by giving it vent to the surface; and that the auger has been like- wise used in bringing up water in wells, to save the expense of deeper digging : but that it had been used in draining land, before Mr. Elking- ton made that discovery, no one has ventured to assert."
Begging pardon of the shade of John Johnstone for the liberty, we will copy from Mr. Gisborne, as being more clearly expressed, a summary explanation of Elkington's system, as Mr. Gisborne has deduced it from Johnstone's report, with two simple and excellent plans:
" A slight modification of Johnstone's best and simplest plan, with a few sentences of explanation, will sufficiently elucidate Elkington's mystery, and will comprehend the case of all simple superficial springs. Perhaps in Agricultural Britain, no formation is more common than moderate elevations of pervious material, such as chalk, gravel, and imperfect stone or rock of various kinds, resting upon more horizontal
32
FAKM DKAINAGE.
beds of clay, or other material less pervious than themselves, and at their inferior edge overlapped by it. For this overlap geological reasons are "given, into which we cannot now enter. In order to make our explanation simple, we use the words, gravel and clay, as generic for pervious and impervious material.
Fig. 1.
:c Our drawing is an atiempt to combine plan and section, which will probably be sufficiently illustrative. From A to T is the overlap, which is, in fact, a dam holding up the water in the gravel. In this dam there is a weak place at S, through which water issues per- manently (a superficial spring), and runs over the surface from S to 0. This issue has a tendency to lower the water in the gravel to the line M ra. But when continued rains overpower this issue, the water in the gravel rises to the line A a, and meeting with no impediment at the point A. it flows over the surface between A and S. In addition to these more decided outlets, the water is probably constantly squeezing, in a slow way, through the whole dam. Elkington undertakes to drain the surface from A to 0. He cuts a drain from 0 to B. and then he puts down a bore-hole, an Artesian well. fronxB to Z. His hole enters the tail of the gravel ; the water contained therein rises up it : and the tendency of this new outlet is to lower the water to the line B b. If so lowered that it can no longer overflow at A or at S. and the surface from A to 0 is drained, so far as the springs are ecr.ee rued, though our section can only represent one spring, and one summit- overflow, it is manifest that, however long the horizontal line of junc- tion between the gravel and clay may be, however numerous the weak places (springs) in the overlap, or dam, and the summit-overflows, they will all be stopped, provided they lie at a higher level than the line B b. If Elkington had driven his drain forward from B to n, he would, at least, equally have attained his object ; but the bore-hole wai
HISTORY OF DRAINING.
33
less expensive. He escapes the deepest and most costly portion of his drain. At a:, he might have bored to the centre of the earth without ever realizing the water in this gravel. His whole success, therefore, depended upon his sagacity in hitting the point Z. Another simple and very common case, first successfully treated by Elkington, is illustrated by our second drawing.
Fig. 2.
" Between gravel hills lies a dish-shaped bed of clay, the gravel being continuous-! under the dish. Springs overflow at A and B, and wet the surface from A to O, and from B to 0. O D is a drain four or five feet deep, and having an adequate outlet; D Z a bore-hole. The water in the gravel rises from Z to D, and is lowered 1o the level D m and D n. Of course it ceases to flow over at A and B. If Elkington's heart had failed him when he reached X, he would have done no good. All his success depends on his reaching Z. however deep it may lie. Elkington was a discoverer. We do not at all believe that his dis- coveries hinged on the accident that the shepherd walked across the field with a crow-bar in his hand. When he forced down that crow- bar, he had more in his head than was ever dreamed of in Johnstone's philosophy. Such accidents do not happen to ordinary men. Elking- toir s subsequent use of his discovery, in which no one has yet excelled him, warrants our supposition that the discovery was not accidental. He was not one of those prophets who are without honor in their own country : he created an immense sensation, and received a parliamentary grant of one thousand pounds. One writer compares his auger to HOSTS' rod, and Arthur Young speculates, whether though worthy to 2*
34: FARM DRAINAGE.
be rewarded by millers on one side of the hill for increasing their stream, he was not liable to an action by those on the other for diminishing theirs."
Johnstone sums up this system as follows :
, £: Draining according to Elkington's principles depends chiefly upon three things :
" 1. Upon discovering the main spring, or source of the evil.
" 2. Upon taking the subterraneous bearings : and,
" 3dly. By making use of the auger to reach and tap the springs, when the depth of the drain is not sufficient for that purpose.
" The first thing, therefore, to be observed is. by examining the adjoining high grounds, to discover what strata they are composed of ; and then to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the inclination of these strata, and their connection with the ground to be drained, and thereby to judge at what place the level of the spring comes nearest to where the water can be cut off. and most readily discharged. The surest way of ascertaining the lay, or inclination, of the different strata, is, by examining the bed of the nearest streams, and the edges of the banks that are cut through by the water ; and any pits, wells, or quarries that may be in the neighborhood. After the main spring has been thus discovered, the next thing is, to ascertain a line on the same level, to one or both sides of it, in which the drain may be conducted, which is one of the most important parts of the operation, and one on which the art of draining in a scientific manner essentially depends.
" Lastly, the use of the auger, which, in many cases, is the sine qua non of the business, is to reach and tap the spring when the depth of the drain does not reach it : where the level of the outlet will not admit of its being- cut to a greater depth ; and where the expense of such cutting would be great, and the execution of it difficult.
According to these principles, this system of draining has been attended with extraordinary consequences, not only in laying the land dry in the vicinity of the drain, but also springs, wells, and wet ground, at a considerable distance, with which there was no apparent con- nection.77
DRAINAGE OF SPRINGS.
Wherever, from any cause, water bursts out from a hill's side, or from below, in a well defined spring, in any considerable quantity, the Elkington method of cutting a
HISTORY OF DRAINING.
35
deep drain directly into the seat of the evil, and so lower- ing the water that it may be carried away below the sur- face, is obviously the true and common-sense remedy. There may be cases where, in addition to the drain, it may be expedient to bore with an anger in the course of the drain. This, however, would be useful only where, from the peculiar formation, water is pent up upon a retentive subsoil in the manner already indicated. Elkington's method of draining by boring is illustrated in the follow- ing cut.
In studying the history of Elkington's discovery, and es- pecially of his own application of it, it would seem that he must have possessed some peculiar faculty of ascertaining the sub- terranean currents of water, not possessed or even claimed by modern engineers.
Indeed, Mr. Den ton, who may rightly claim as much skill as a draining engineer, perhaps, as any man in England, expressly eays, " It does not appear that any person now will undertake to do what Elkington did sixty years back."
In the Patent Office Report for 1851, at page 14, may be found an article entitled, " We' - digging," in which it is gravely contended, and not without a fair show of evidence, that cer tain persons possess the power of indicating, by means of a sort of divining rod of hazel or willow, subterraneous currents or springs of water.
36 FAKM DRAINAGE.
This povtferhas been called Bletonism, which is defined by Webster to be, " the faculty of perceiving and indicating subterraneous springs and currents by sensation — so called from one Bleton, of France, who possessed this faculty."
Under the authority of "Webster, and of Mr. Ewbank, the Commissioner of Patents, in whose report the article in question was published by the Government of the United States, it will not be considered, perhaps, as put- ting faith in " water-witchery," to suggest that, possibly, Elkington did really possess a faculty, not common to all mankind, of detecting running water or springs, even far below the surface. We have the high authority of Tarn o' Shanter for the opinion, that witches cannot cross a stream of water ; for, when pursued by the " hellish legion" from Kirk-Alloway, he put his " gude mare Meg'' to do her " speedy utmost" for the bridge of Doori, knowing that,
"A running stream they darena cross."
If witches are thus affected by flowing water, there is no reason to doubt that others, of peculiar organization, may possess some sensitiveness at its presence.
It would not, probably, be useful to pursue more into detail the method of Mr. Elkington. The general prin- ciples upon which he wrought have been sufficiently ex- plained. The miracles performed under his system seem to have ceased with his life, and, until we receive some new revelation as to the mode of finding the springs hidden in the earth, we must be content with the moderate results of a careful application of ordinary science, and not be discouraged in our attempts to leave the earth the belter for our having lived on it, if we do not, like Elkington, succeed in draining, by a single ditch and a few auger holes, sixty statute acres of land.
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 37
THE DEANSTON SYSTEM; OR, FREQUENT DRAINAGE.
James Smith, Esq., of Deanston, Sterlingshire, in Scot- land, next after Elkington, in point of time, is the promi- nent leader of drainage operations in Great Britain. His peculiar views came into general notice about 1832, and, in 1844, we find published a seventh edition of his " Ke- marks on Thorough Draining." Smith was a man of edu- cation, and seems to be, in fact, the first advocate of any system worthy the name of thorough drainage.
Instead of the few very deep drains, cut with reference to particular springs or sources of wetness, adopted by Elkington, Smith advocated and practiced a systematic operation over the whole field, at regular distances and shallow depths. Smith states, that in Scotland, much more injury arises from the retention of rain water, than from springs ; while Elkington's attention seems to have been especially directed to springs, as the source of the evil.
The characteristic views of Smith, of Deanston, as stated by Mr. Dent on, were :
" 1st. Frequent drains at intervals of from ten to twenty-four feet.
" 2nd. Shallow depth — not exceeding thirty inches — designed for the single purpose of freeing that depth of soil from stagnant and injurious Water.
" 3rd. ' Parallel drains at regular distances carried throughout the whole field, without reference to the wet and dry appearance of por- tions of the field,' in order { to provide frequent opportunities for the water, rising from below and falling on the surface, to pass freely and completely off.
" 4th. Direction of the minor drains l down the steep,' and that ol the mains along the bottom of the chief hollow ; tributary mains being provided for the lesser hollows.
" The reason assigned for the minor drains following* the line Oi steepest descent, was, that ' the stratification generally lies in sheets at an angle to the surface.'
" 5th As tt material — Stones preferred to tiles and pipes."
38 FARM DRAINAGE.
Mr. Smith somewhat modified his views during the last years of his life, especially as to the depth of drains, and, instead of shallow drains, recommended a depth of three feet, and -even more in some cases ; but continued, to the time of his death, which occurred about 185 J-, to oppose any increased intervals between the drains, and the ex- treme depth of four feet and more advocated by others. The peculiar points insisted on by Smith were, that drains should be near and parallel. His own words are :
u The drains should be parallel with each other and at regular dis- tances, and should be carried throughout the whole field, without regard to the wet and dry appearance of portions of the field — the principle of this system being the providing of frequent opportunities for the water rising from below, or falling on the surface, to pass freely and com- pletely off."
Mr. Smith called it the " frequent drain system," and Mr. Denton says, that, " for distinction sake, I have ven- tured to christen this ready-made practice, the gridiron system" a name, by the way, which will, probably, seem to most readers more distinctive than respectful. What- ever may be the improvements on the Deanston method of draining, the name of Mr. Smith deserves, and, indeed, has already obtained, a high place among the improvers of agriculture.
VIEWS OF MK. PARKES.
About the year 1846, when the first Act of the British Parliament authorizing " the advance of public money to promote the improvement of land by works of drainage" was passed, a careful investigation of the whole subject was made by a Committee of the House of Lords, and it was found that the best recorded opinions, if we except the peculiar views of Elkington, were represented by, if not merged into, those of Smith, of Deanston, which have already been stated, or those of Josiah Parkes. Mr. Parkes is the author of " Essays on the Philosophy and
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 39
Art of Land Drainage," and of many valuable papers on the same subject, published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he was consulting engineer. He is spoken of by Mr. Denton as " one whose philo- sophical publications on the same subject gave a scientific bearing to it, quite irreconcilable with the more mechan- ical rules laid down by Mr. Smith."
The characteristic views of Mr. Parkes, as set forth at that time, as compared with those of Mr. Smith, are —
" 1st. Less frequent drains, at intervals varying from twenty-one to fifty feet, with preference for wide intervals.
li 2nd. Deeper drains at a minimum depth of four feet, designed with the two-fold object of not only freeing the active soil from stagnant and iigurious water, but of converting the water falling on the surface into an agent for fertilizing ] no drainage being deemed efficient that did not both remove the water falling on the surface, and : keep down the sub- terranean water at a depth exceeding the power of capillary attraction to elevate it to near the surface.'
" 3rd. Parallel arrangement of drains, as advocated by Smith, of Deanston.
'• 4th. The advantage of increased depth, as compensating for increased width between the drains.
" 5th. Pipes of an inch bore, the l best known conduit ' for the parallel drains. (See Evidence before Lords' Committee on Entailed Estates, 1845, Q. 67.)
" 6th. The cost of draining uniform clays should not exceed £3 per acre}'
The most material differences between the views of these two leaders of what have been deemed rival systems of drainage, will be seen to be the following. Smith advocates drains of two to three feet in depth, at from ten to twenty-four feet distances ; while Parkes contends for a depth of not less than four feet, with a width between of from twenty-one to fifty feet, the depth in some measure compensating for the increased distance.
Mr. Parkes advocated the use of pipes of one inch bore,
40
FAEM DRAINAGE.
which Mr. Smith contemptuously denominated " pencil- cases, "' and which subsequent experience has shown to be quite too small for prudent use.
The estimate of Mr. Parkes, based, in part, upon his wide distances and small pipes, that drainage might be effected generally in England at a cost of about fifteen dollars per acre, was soon found to be far below the average expense, which is now estimated at nearly double that sum.
The Enclosure Commissioners, after the most careful inquiry, adopted fully the views of Mr. Parkes as to the depth of drains. Mr. Parkes himself, saw occasion to modify his ideas, as to the cost of drainage, upon further investigation of the subject, and fixed his estimates as ranging from $15 to $30 per acre, according to soil and other local circumstances.
It has been well said by a recent English writer, of Mr. Parkes :
" That gentleman's services in the cause of drainage, have been in- estimable, and his high reputation will not be affected by any remarks which experience may suggest with reference to details, so long as the philosophical principles he first advanced in support of deep drainage are acknowledged by thinking men. Mr. Parkes' practice in 1854, will be found to differ very considerably from his anticipations of 1845, but the influence of his earlier writings and sayings continues to this day.''
THE KEYTIIORPE SYSTEM.
Lord Berners having adopted a method of drainage on his estate at IKeylliorpe, differing somewhat from any of the regular and more uniform modes which have been considered, a sharp controversy as to its merits has arisen, and still continues in England, which, like most contro- versies, may be of more advantage to others than to the parties immediately concerned.
The theory of the Keythorpe system seems to have been invented by Mr. Joshua Trimmer, a distinguished geologist
HISTORY OF DRAINING . 4
of England, who, about 1854, produced a paper, which was published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, on the " Keythorpe System." He states that his own theory was based entirely on his knowledge of the geological structure of the earth, which will be presently given in his own language, and that he afterwards ascer- tained that Lord Berners, who had no special theory to vindicate, had, by the " tentative process," or in plain English, by trying experiments, hit upon substantially the same system, and found it to work admirably.
Most people in the United States have no idea of what it is to be patronized by a lord. In England, it is thought by many to be the thing needful to the chance, even, of success of any new theory, and accordingly, Mr. Trimmer, without hesitation, availed himself of the privilege of being patronized by Lord Berners ; and the latter, before he was aware of how much the agricultural world was indebted to him for his valuable discoveries, suddenly found himself at the head of the " Keythorpe System of Drainage."
His lordship was probably as much surprised to ascer- tain that he had been working out a new system, as some man of whom we have heard, was, to learn that he had been speaking prose all his life ! At the call of the public, however, his lordship at once gave to the world the facts in his possession, making no claim to any great discovery, and leaving Mr. Trimmer to defend the new system as best he might. The latter, in one of hie pamphlets pub- lished in defence of the Keythorpe system, states its claims as follows :
" The peculiarities of the Keythorpe system of draining consist in this — that the parallel drains are not equidistant, and that they cross the line of the greatest descent. The usual depth is three and a half feet, but some are as deep as five and six feet. The depth and width of interval are determined by digging trial-holes, in order to ascertain not only the depth at \vhich the bottom water is reached, but the height
4-5 FARV DRAINAGE.
to which the water rises in the holes, and the distance at which a drain will lay the hole dry. In sinking these holes, clay-banks are found wiih hollows or furrows between them, which are filled with a moi't poious soil, as represented in the annexed sectional diagram.
Fig. 4.
«« Trial -holes.
& Clay-banks of lias or of boulder-clay.
c A more porous warp-drift filling furrows between the clay-banks.
"The next object is to connect these furrows by drains laid across them. The result is, that as the furrows and ridges here run along the fall of the ground, which I have observed to be the case generally elsewhere, the submains follow the fall, and the parallel drains cross it obliquely.
" The intervals between the parallel drains are irregular, varying, in the same field, from 14 to 21, 31. and 59 feet. The distances are de- termined by opening the diagonal drains at the greatest distance from the trial-holes at which experience has taught the practicability of its draining the hole. If it does not succeed in accomplishing the object, another drain is opened in the interval. It has been found, in many cases, that a drain crossing the clay-banks and furrows takes the water from holes lying lower down the hill ; that is to say, it intercepts the water flowing to them through these subterranean channels. The par- allel drains, however, are not invariably laid across the fall. The ex- ceptions are on ground where the fall is very slight, in which case they are laid along the line of greatest descent. On such grounds there are few or no clay-banks and furrows."
It would seem highly probable that the mode of drain- age adopted at Keythorpe, is indebted for its success at that place, to a geological formation not often met with. At a public discussion in England, Mr. T. Scott, a gentle- man of large experience in draining, stated that "he never, in his practice, had met with such a geological
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 43
formation as was said to exist at Keythorpe, except in such large areas as to admit of their being drained in the usual gridiron or parallel fashion.''
It is claimed for this system by its advocates, that it is far cheaper than any other, because drains are only laid in the places where, by careful examination beforehand, by opening pits, they are found to be necessary ; and that is a great saving of expense, when compared with the system of laying the drains at equal distances and depths over the field.
Against what is urged as the Keythorpe system, several allegations are brought.
In the first place, that it is in fact no system. Mr. Den- ton, having carefully examined the Keythorpe estate, and the. published statements of its owner, asserts, that the drains there laid have no uniformity of depth — part of the tiles being laid but eighteen inches deep, and others four feet and more, in the same field.
Secondly, that there is no uniformity as to direction — part of the drains being laid across the fall, and part with the fall, in the same fields — with no obvious reason for the difference of direction.
Thirdly, that there is no uniformity as to materials — a part of the drains being wood, and a part tiles, in the same field.
Finally, it is contended that there is no saving of expense in the Keythorpe draining, over the ordinary mode, when all points are considered, -because the pre- tended saving is made by the use of wood, wrhere true economy would require tiles, and shallow drains are used where deeper ones would in the end be cheaper.
In speaking of this controversy, it is due to Lord Berners to say, that he expressly disclaims any invention or novelty in his operations at Keythorpe.
On the whole, although a work at the present day
4:4: FAKM DRAINAGE.
which should pass over, without consideration, the claims of the Keythorpe system, would be quite incomplete in its history of the subject, yet the facts elicited with regard to it are perhaps chiefly valuable, as tending to show the danger of basing a general principle upon an isolated case.
The discussion of the claims of that system — if such it may be called — may be valuable in America, where novelty is sure to attract, by showing that one more form of error has already been tried and "found wanting;" and so save us the trouble of proving its in utility by experiment.
THE WHAENCLIFFE SYSTEM.
Lord Wharncliffe, with a view to effect adequate drain- age at less expense than is usual in thorough drainage, has adopted upon his estate a sort of compromise system, which he has brought to the notice of the public in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.
Upon Fontenelle's idea, that " mankind only settle into the right course after passing through and exhausting all the varieties of error," it is well to advise our readers of this particular form of error also — to show that it has already been tried — so that no patent of invention can be claimed upon it by those perverse persons who are not satisfied without constant change, and who seern to imagine that the ten commandments might be improved by a new edition.
Lord Wharncliffe states his principles as follows, and calls his method the combined system of deep and shallow drainage :
" In order to secure the full effect of thorough drainage in clays, it is necessary that there should be not only well-laid conduits for the water which reaches them, but also subsidiary passages opened through the substance of the close subsoil, by means of atmospheric heat, snid the contraction which ensues from it. The cracks and fissures whict '^sult
HISTORY OF DRAINING. 45
from this action, are reckoned upon as a certain and essential part of the process.
" To give efficiency, therefore, to a system of deep drains beneath a stiff clay, these natural channels are required. To produce them, there must be a continued action of heat and evaporation. If we draw off effectually and constantly the bottom water from beneath the clay and from its substance, as far as it admits of percolation, and by some other means provide a vent for the upper water, which needs no more than this facility to run freely, there seems good reason to suppose that the object may be completely attained, and that we shall remove the moisture from both portions as effectually as its quantity and the sub- stance will permit. Acting upon this view, then, after due considera- tion, I determined to combine with the fundamental four-feet drains a system of auxiliary ones of much less depth, which should do their work above, and contribute their share to the wholesome discharge, while the under-current from their more subterranean neighbors should be steadily performing their more difficult duty.
" I accomplished this, by placing my four-feet drains at a distance of from eighteen to twenty yards apart, and then leading others into them, sunk only to about two feet beneath the surface (which appeared, upon consideration, to be sufficiently below any conceivable depth of culti- vation), and laying these at a distance from each other of eight yards. These latter are laid at an acute angle with the main-drains, and at their mouths are either gradually sloped downwards to the lower level, or have a few loose stones placed in the same intervals between the two, sufficient to ensure the perpendicular descent of the upper stream through that space, which can never exceed, or, indeed, strictly equal, the additional two feet."
There are two reasons why this mode of drainage can- not be adopted in the northern part of the United States.
First : The two-foot drains would be liable to be frozen up solid, every winter.
Secondly : The, subsoil plow, now coming into use among our best cultivators, runs to so great a depth as to be likely to entirely destroy two-foot drains at the first operation, even if it were not intended to run the sub- soiler to a greater general depth than eighteen inches. Any one who has had experience in holding a subsoil-
46 FARM DRAINAGE.
plow, must know that it is an implement somewhat un manageable, and liable to plunge deep into soft spots like the covering over drains ; so that no skill or care could render its use safe over two-foot drains.
The history of drainage in America, is soon given. It begins here, as it must begin everywhere, when practiced as a general system, with the introduction of tiles.
In 1835, Mr. John Johnston, of Seneca County, New York, a Scotchman by birth, imported from Scotland pat- terns of drain-tiles, and caused them to be made by hand- labor, and set the example of their use on his own farm. The effects of Mr. Johnston's operations were so striking, that in 1848, John Delafield, Esq., for a long time Pre- sident of the Seneca County Agricultural Society, im- ported from England one of Scragg's Patent Tile machines. From that time, tile-draining in that county, and in the neighboring counties, has been diligently and profitably pursued. Several interesting statements of successful ex- periments by Mr. Johnston, Mr. Delafield, Mr. Theron G. Yeomans of Wayne County, and others, have been pub- lished, from time to time, in the " New York Transactions." Indeed, most of our information of experimental draining in this country, has come from that quarter.
Mr. Johnston, for more than twenty years, has made himself useful to the country, and at the same time gained a wide reputation for himself, by occasional publications on the subject of drainage.
In addition to this, his practical knowledge of agri culture, and especially of the subject of drainage, has gained for him a competence for his declining years. In this we rejoice; and trust that in these, his latter years, he may be made ever to feel, that, even they among us of the friends of agriculture who have not known him personally, are not umnindul of their obligations to him as the leader of a most beneficent enterprise.
HISTOKY OF DRAINING.
Tile- works have since been established at various places in New York, at several places in Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, and many other States. The first drain-tiles used in New-Hampshire, were brought from Albany, in 1854, by Mr. William Conner, and used on his farm in Exeter, that year; and the following year, the writer brought some from Albany, and laid them on his farm, in the same town.
In 1857, tile-works were put in operation at Exeter; and some 40,000 tiles were made that year.
The horse-shoe tiles, we understand, have been gen- erally used in New York. At Albany, and in Massa- chusetts, the sole-tile has been of late years preferred. "We cannot learn that cylindrical pipes have ever been manufactured in this country until the Summer of 1858? when the engineers of the New York Central Park pro- cured them to be made, and laid them, with collars, in their drainage- works there. This is believed to be the first practical introduction into this country of round pipes and collars, which are regarded in England as the most perfect means of drainage.
Experiments all over the country, in reclaiming bog- meadows, and in draining wet lands with drains of stone and wood, have been attempted, with various success.
Those attempts we regard as merely efforts in the right direction, and rather as evidence of a general conviction of the want, by the American farmer, of a cheap and effi cient mode of drainage, than as an introduction of a system of thorough drainage ; for — as we think will ap- pear in the course of this work — no system of drainage can be made sufficiently cheap and efficient for general adoption, with other materials than drain-tiles.
FARM DRAINAGE.
CHAPTER HI.
RAIN, EVAPORATION, AND FILTRATION.
Fertilizing Substances in Rain Water. — Amount of Rain Fall in United States — in England. — Tables of Rain Fall. — Number of Rainy Days, and Quantity of Rain each Month. — Snow, how Computed as Water. — Pro- portion of Rain Evaporated. — What Quantity of Water Dry Soil will Hold. — Dew Point. — How Evaporation Cools Bodies. — Artificial Heat Under- ground.— Tables of Filtration and Evaporation.
ALTHOUGH we usually regard drainage as a means of rendering land sufficiently dry for cultivation, that is by no means a comprehensive view of the objects of the operation.
Rain is the principal source of moisture, and a sur- plus of moisture is the evil against which we contend in draining. But rain is also a principal source of fertility, not only because it affords the necessary moisture to dis- solve the elements of fertility already in the soil, but also because it contains in itself, or brings with it from the atmosphere, valuable fertilizing substances. In a learned article by Mr. Caird, in the Cyclopedia of Agriculture, on the Rotation of Crops, he says :
" The surprising effects of a fallow, even when unaided by any manure, has received some explanation by the rec§nt discovery of Mr. Barral, that rain-water contains within itself.and conveys into the soil, fertilizing substances of the utmost importance, equivalent, in a fall of rain of 24 inches per annum, to the quantity of ammonia contained in 2 cwt. of Peruvian guano, with 150 Ibs. of nitrogeneous matter besides, all suited to the nutrition of our crops."
KAIN AND EVAPORATION. 49
About 42 inches of rain may be taKen as a fair general average of the rain-fall in the United States. If this sap- plies as much ammonia to the soil as 3 cwt. of Peruvian guano to the acre, which is considered a liberal manuring, and which is valuable principally for its ammonia, we at once see the importance of retaining the rain-water long enough upon our fields, at least, to rob it of its treasures. But rain-water has a farther value than has yet been sug- gested :
" Rain-water always contains in solution, air, carbonic acid, and am- monia. The two first ingredients are among the most powerful disin- tegrators of a soil. The oxygen of the air, and the carbonic acid being both in a highly condensed form, by being dissolved, possess very powerful affinities for the ingredients of the soil. The oxygen attacks and oxydizes the iron : the carbonic acid seizing the lime and potash and other alkaline ingredients of the soil, produces a further disintegra- tion, and renders available the locked-up ingredients of this magazine of nutriment. Before these can be used by plants, they must be rendered soluble ; and this is only affected by the free and renewed access of rain and air. The ready passage of both of these, therefore, enables the soil to yield up its concealed nutriment.'*
We see, then, that the rains of heaven bring us not only water, but food for our plants, and that, while we would remove by proper drainage the surplus moisture, we should take care to first conduct it through the soil far enough to fulfill its mission of fertility. We cannot sup- pose that all rain-water brings to our fields precisely the same proportion of the elements of fertility, because the foreign properties with which it is charged, must contin- ually vary with the condition of the atmosphere through which it falls, whether it be the thick and murky cloud which overhangs the coal-burning city, or the transparent ether of the mountain tops. We may see, too, by the tables, that the quantity of rain that falls, varies much, not only with the varying seasons of the year, and with the different seasons of different years, but with the dis- 3
50 FARM DBAINAGE.
tance from the equator, the diversity of mountain and river, and lake and wood, and especially with locality as to the ocean. Yet the average results of nature's opera- tions through a series of years, are startlingly constant and uniform, and we may deduce from tables of rain-falls, as from bills of mortality and tables of longevity, conclu- sions almost as reliable as from mathematical premises.
The quantity of rain is generally increased by the locality of mountain ranges. "Thus, at the Edinburgh "Water Company's works, on the Pentland Hills, there fell in 1849, nearly twice as much rain as at Edinburgh, although the distance between the two places is only seven miles."
Although a much greater quantity of rain falls in mountainous districts (within certain limits of elevation) than in the plains, yet a greater quantity of rain falls at the surface of the ground than at an elevation of a few hundred feet. Thus, from experiments which were care- fully made at York, it was ascertained that there fell eight and a half inches more rain at the surface of the ground, in the course of twelve months, than at the top of the Minster, which is 212 feet high. Similar results have been obtained in many other places.
Some observations upon this point may also be found in the ^Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1855, at p. 210, given by Professor C. W. Morris, of New York.
Again, the evaporation from the surface of water being much greater than from the land, clouds that are wafted by the winds from the sea to the land, condense their vapor upon the colder hills and mountain sides, and yield rain, so that high lands near the sea or other large bodies of water, from which the winds generally blow, have a greater proportion of rainy days and a greater fall of rain than lands more remote from water. The annual rain- fall in the lake districts in Cumberland County, in Eng- land, sometimes amounts to more than 150 inches.
KAIN AND EVAPORATION. 51
With a desire to contribute as much as possible to the stock of accurate knowledge on this subject, we availed ourselves of the kindly offered services of our friends, Shedd and Edson, in preparing a carefully considered article upon a part of our general subject, which has much engaged their attention. Neither the article itself, nor the observations of Dr. Hobbs, which form a part of its basis, has ever before been published, and we believe our pages cannot be better occupied than by giving them in the language of our friends :
" All vegetables, in the various stages of growth, re- quire warmth, air, and moisture, to support life and health.
Below the surface of the ground there is a body of stagnant water, sometimes at a great depth, but in reten- tive soils usually within a foot or two of the surface. This stagnant water not only excludes the air, but ren- ders the soil much colder, and, being in itself of no benefit, without warmth and air, its removal to a greater depth is very desirable.
A knowledge of the depth to which this water-table should be removed, and of the means of removing it, con- stitutes the science of draining, and in its discussion, a knowledge of the rain-fall, humidity of the atmosphere, and amount of evaporation, is very important.
The amount of rain -fall, as shown by the hyetal, or rain-chart, of North America, by Lorin Blodget, is thirty inches vertical depth in the basin of the great lakes ; thirty-two inches on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain ; thirty-six inches in the valley of the Hudson, on the head waters of the Ohio, through the middle portions of Penn- sylvania and Virginia, and western portion of North Carolina ; forty inches in the extreme eastern and the northern portion of Maine, northern portions of New Hampshire and Yermont, south-eastern counties of
52 FARM DRAINAGE.
cluisetts, Central New York, north-east portion of Penn- sylvania, south-east portion of New Jersey and Delaware ; also, on a narrow belt running down from the western portion of Maryland, through Virginia and North Caro- lina, to the north-western portion of South Carolina ; thence, up through the western portion of Virginia, north- east portion of Ohio, Northern Indiana and Illinois, to Prairie du Chien ; forty-two inches on the east coast of JVlaine, Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Con- necticut, and middle portion of Maryland ; thence, on a narrow belt to South Carolina ; thence, up through Eastern Tennessee, through Central Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, tolo\va ; thence, down through Western Missouri and Texas to tho Gulf of Mexico ; forty-five inches from Concord, New Hampshire, through Worcester, Mass., "Western Connecticut, and the City of New York, to the Susque- haima River, just north of Maryland ; also, at Rich* mor.d, Va., Raleigh, N. C., Augusta, Geo., Knoxville, Tenn., Indianopolis, Ind., Springfield, 111., St. Louis, Mo. ; thence, through Western Arkansas, across Red River to the Gulf of Mexico. From the belt just described, the rain-fall increases inland and southward, until at Mobile, Ala., the rain-fall is sixty-three inches. The same amount also falls in the extreme southern portion of Florida.
In England, the average rain-fall in the eastern portion is represented at twenty inches ; in the middle portion, twenty-two inches ; in the southern and western, thirty inches ; in the extreme south-western, forty-five inches 19 and in Wales, fifty inches. In the eastern portion of Ire- land, it is twenty-five inches ; and in the western, forty inches.
Observations at London for forty years, by Dalton, gave average fall of 20.69 inches. Observations at New Bedford, Mass., for forty-three years, by S. Rodman, gave Average fall pf 41.03 inches — about double the amount in
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 53
London The mean quantity for each month, at both places, is as follows :
New Bedford. London.
January 3.36 1.46
February 3.32 1.25
March 3.44 1.17
April 3.60 1.28
May 3.63 1.64
June 2.71 1.74
July 2.86 2.45
August 3.61 1.81
September 3.33 1.84
October 3.46 2.09
November 3.97 222
December .. 3.74 1.74
Spring 10.67 „ 409
Summer 9.18 6.00
Autumn 10.76 6.15
Winter 10.42 4.45
Year 41.03 20.69
Another very striking difference between the two coun~ tries is shown by a comparison of the quantity of water falling in single days. The following table, given in the Radcliffe Observatory .Reports, Oxford, England, 15tb volume, shows the proportion of very light rains thefc. The observation was in the year 1854. Rain fell on 356 days :
73 days gave less than 05 inch,
30 " between that and 10 "
27 " between .10 " 20 "
9 " " .20 " 30 "
9 " " .30 " 40 "
4 « « .40 " 50 "
1 gave 60 "
2 " 80 «
1 " . . 1.00 «
FARM DRAINAGE.
Neaily half the number gave less fall than five-lmn- dredtha of an inch, and more than four-fifths the number gave less than one-fifth of an inch, and none gave over an inch.
There is more rain in the United States, by a large measure, than there ; but the amount falls in less time, and the average of saturation is certainly much less here. From manuscript records, furnished us by Dr. Hobbs, of Waltharn, Mass., we find, that the quantity falling in the year 1854, was equal to the average quantity for thirty years, and that rain fell on fifty-four days, in the propor- tion as follows :
Number of rainy days, 54 ; total rain-fall, 41.29. 0 days gave less than 05 inch.
between that and
between .10 "
" .20 "
" .30 "
" .40 «
" .50 "
" .60 <;
" .70 "
" .80 "
" .90 "
" 1.00 "
" .10 "
" .20 "
" .30 "
" .40 "
" .50 "
" 1.60 "
" 1.80 «
" 2.30 "
" 2.50 "
" 3.20 "
|
10 |
a |
|
.20 |
a |
|
.30 |
u |
|
.40 |
u |
|
. ... .50 |
u |
|
.60 |
u |
|
70 |
u |
|
.80 |
it |
|
90 |
u |
|
1.00 |
u |
|
... . .. .10 |
it |
|
.20 |
u |
|
30 |
It |
|
.40 |
u |
|
.50 |
It |
|
. .60 |
u |
|
1.70 |
It |
|
. 1.90 |
u |
|
2.40 |
ti |
|
2.60 |
It |
|
. 3.30 |
il |
"No rain-fall gave less than five-hundredths of an inch ; and more than one -fourth the number of days gave more
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 55
than one inch. In 1850, four years earlier, the rain-fall for the year, in Waltham, was 62.13 inches, the greatest recorded by observations kept since 1824. It fell as shown in the table :
Number of rainy days, 58; total rain-fall, 62.13.
3 days gave between .05 and 10 inches.
4 " .10 " 20 "
6 « .20 " 30 "
3 " .30 " 40 "
5 " .40 '• 50 "
3 " .50 " 60 "
3 " .60 " 70 "
3 " .70 " 80 "
2 " .80 " 90 "
1 " .90 " 1.00 "
3 " 1.00 " 1.10 "
7 " 1.20 " 1.30 "
2 " 1.80 « 1.90 "
2 " 1.90 " 2.00 «
3 " 2.00 " 2.10 "
2 " 2.10 " 2.20 "
" 2.30 « 2.40 "
" 2.50 " 2.60 "
" 2.60 " 2.70 "
" 2.80 " 2.90 "
" 3.60 " 3.70 "
1 " 4.50 " 4.60 "
Sept. 7th and 8th, in 24 hours, 6.88 inches of rain fell, the greatest quantity recorded in one day.
In 1846 — still earlier by four years — the rain-fall in Waltham was 26.90 inches — the least" recorded by the same observations. It fell, as shown in the table : Num- ber of rainy days, 49 ; total rain-fall, 26.90.
3 days gave between .05 and 10 inches.
7 " .10 " 20 "
jO " .20 " 30 '«
6 " .30 " 40 «
4 " .40 « . .50 «
56
FAKM DRAINAGE.
|
3 da |
ys gave |
between .50 |
|
2 |
u |
.70 |
|
3 |
ti |
.80 |
|
1 |
a |
.90 |
|
3 |
ti |
1.00 |
|
2 |
a |
1.10 |
|
1 |
cc |
1.20 |
|
2 |
u |
1.40 |
|
1 |
a |
1.50 |
|
1 |
n |
2.40 |
.50 and .. .60 inches.
|
80 |
u |
|
|
90 |
tt |
|
|
,00 |
u |
|
|
10 |
u |
|
|
20 |
tt |
|
|
.30 |
u |
|
|
50 |
it |
|
|
60 |
ti |
|
|
i |
2.50 |
11 |
The rain-fall in 1852 was very near the average for thirty years ; and the quantity falling in single storms, on sixty-three different occasions, as registered by Dr. Hobbs, was as follows : Number of storms, 63 ; total rain-fall, 42.24.
7 storms gave less than 10 inches
11 9 5 6 5 1 1 3 1 5 1 1 1 3 1 1 1
These tables are sufficient to show that provision must be made to carry off much greater quantities of water from lands in this country than in England. We add a table of the greatest fall of rain in any one day, for each month, and for the vear, from April, 1824-, to 1st January,
|
between |
.10 |
and |
20 |
|
u |
.20 |
cc |
30 |
|
u |
.30 |
a |
40 |
|
u |
.40 |
ti |
50 |
|
tt |
.50 |
a |
60 |
|
It |
.60 |
it |
70 |
|
tt |
.70 |
a |
80 |
|
It |
.80 |
a |
...... .90 |
|
tt |
.90 |
tt |
1.00 |
|
It |
1.00 |
it |
1.10 |
|
It |
1.10 |
ti |
1.20 |
|
ti |
1.20 |
u |
1 30 |
|
tt |
1.40 |
tt |
1.50 |
|
it |
1.60 |
a |
1.70 |
|
in 5 days. |
• |
3.16 |
|
|
It 4 1C |
4.38 |
||
|
" 6 " |
. 5.35 |
RAIN AND EVAPORATION.
57
1859. It also was abstracted from the manuscript of observations by Dr. Hobbs, and will be, we think, quite useful :
|
M |
ss |
hrj CO |
1 |
I |
| |
e— i c CO |
£ |
c to |
1 |
? g |
r |
CD |
sf |
|
en |
EJ |
2 |
K |
I |
CD |
3 |
3 |
of ®" |
|||||
|
; |
^ |
£5 |
, |
1 |
r |
cf |
O"1 CD |
,<, S- |
|||||
|
i-S |
i |
||||||||||||
|
| |
! |
- |
: |
i |
' |
• |
-t £°" |
||||||
|
1824 |
0.76 |
0.67 |
0.53 |
0.44 |
1.90 |
254 |
0.81 |
0.76 |
1.80 |
2.54 |
|||
|
1825 |
2.16 |
2.61 |
0.27 |
1.23 |
1.37 |
0.91 |
2.51 |
0.89 |
1.32 |
0.71 |
2.40 |
2.61 |
|
|
1826 |
1.80 |
0.56 |
1.67 |
0.89 |
0.39 |
1.78 |
0.87 |
1.80 |
1.57 |
1.37 |
1.22 1.41 |
1.87 |
|
|
1827 |
3.81 |
1.55 |
2.42 |
0.66 |
1.36 |
3.16 |
493 |
2.22 |
3.85 1.39 |
4.93 |
|||
|
1828 |
0.60 |
1.48 |
1.82 |
2.06 |
2.01 |
1.44 |
1.52 |
0.14 |
1.82 |
1.52 |
1.90 0.29 |
2.06 |
|
|
1829 |
3.86 |
1.98 |
4.12 |
2.35 |
1.15 |
0.97 |
1.92 |
0.97 |
1.39 |
1.00 |
1.25!1.58 |
4.12 |
|
|
1830 |
1.31 |
1.17 |
2 68 |
2.28 |
0.78 |
1.84 |
2.45 |
2.40 |
1.20 2.64 |
2.44 |
2.68 |
||
|
1831 |
0.64 |
1.48 |
2.32 |
2.12 |
1.79 |
1.87 |
2.27 |
1.00 |
1.00 |
2.82 1.24 |
0.15 |
2.82 |
|
|
1832 |
2.68 |
1.59 |
2.00 |
4.48 |
2.52 |
1.24 |
2.13 |
0.80J1.50 |
2.60 |
1.34 |
4.48 |
||
|
1833 |
0.83 |
2 57 |
0.98 |
•2.03 |
1.42 |
0.64 |
2.75i232 |
3.12 |
1.27 |
3.12 |
|||
|
1834 |
0.64 |
1.31 |
0.94 |
2.35 |
1.87 |
2.12 |
0.73 |
1.25 |
1.89 |
2.42 |
0.92 |
2.42 |
|
|
1835 |
1.44 |
0.88 |
2.48 |
2 48 |
1.18 |
1.52 |
4.72 |
1.32 |
1.57 |
3.28 |
0.74 |
2.32 |
4.72 |
|
1836 |
2.72 |
3.04 |
2.26 |
1.86 |
1.29 |
2.24 |
1.04 |
0.72 |
0.36 |
2.04 |
1.50 |
1.68 |
3.04 |
|
1837 |
3.62 |
1.50 |
1.14 |
1.68 |
1.46 |
1.30 |
0.72 |
0.78 |
0.66 |
1.46 |
0.81 |
1.68 |
3.62 |
|
1838 |
1.64 |
0.75 |
0.76 |
1.32 |
1.40 |
1.67 |
0.82 |
1.40 |
3.84 |
1.10 |
2.46 |
1.00 |
3.84 |
|
1839 |
0.70 |
0.80 |
0.58 |
4.06 |
2.98 |
0.94 |
1.08 |
3.54 |
0.70 |
1.60 |
0.80 |
1.92 |
4.06 |
|
1840 |
1.68 |
2.20 |
1.54 |
2.12 |
1.16 |
1.08 |
1.40 |
2.72 1.28 |
1.04 |
3 72 |
1.12 |
3.72 |
|
|
1841 |
1.44 |
1 12 |
1.32 |
1.64 |
0.90 |
0.75 |
0.64 |
2.82'2.78 |
2.66 |
1.05 |
1.70 |
2.82 |
|
|
1842 |
0.54 |
1.22 |
1.16 |
0.64 |
0.47 |
2.10 |
0.68 |
1.44 |
0.96 |
0.34 |
1.10 |
2.02 |
2.10 |
|
1843 |
1.60 |
1.64 |
2.50 |
1.34 |
0.34 |
1.04 |
1.98 |
2.58 |
0.52 |
1.94 |
1.28 |
2.58 |
|
|
1844 |
4.14 |
2.06 |
0.24 |
0.58 |
0.78 |
0.86 |
1.34 |
1.76 |
2.30 |
1.86 |
1.28 |
4 14 |
|
|
1845 |
2.42 |
1.70 |
1.14 |
0.70 |
1.02 |
1.03 |
1.20 |
1.66 |
0.88 1.16 |
3.32 |
1.46 |
3.32 |
|
|
1846 |
1.54 |
2.46 |
1.16 |
1.18 |
0.82 |
1.46 |
0.49 |
0.56 0.55 |
0.54 |
1.02 |
2.46 |
||
|
1847 |
1.18 |
2.74 |
1.66 |
1.12 |
0.84 |
1.28 |
0.56 |
1.86 |
2 160.64 |
2.74 |
3.02 |
3.02 |
|
|
1848 |
1.44 |
1 .56 |
2 68 0.68 |
2.28 |
1.00 |
0.72 |
1.24 |
1.48 2.96 |
0.88 |
1.00 |
2.96 |
||
|
'849 |
1.36 |
0.40 |
2.30 0.92 |
1.28 |
0.72 |
1.22 |
2.08 |
1.12, |
2.60 |
2.48 |
1 76 |
2.60 |
|
|
850 |
2.56 |
1.92 |
1.84 |
2.68 |
2.80 |
1.20 |
1.20 |
3.68 |
6.88 |
.04 |
2.16 |
1.92 6.88 |
|
|
180! |
0.80 |
1.84 |
0.56 |
3.60 |
1.92 |
1.12 |
0.96 |
0.32 |
1.15 |
.47 |
2.25 |
0.89 3.60 |
|
|
1852 |
1.06 |
0.88 |
1.15 |
4.38 |
1.47 |
1.69 |
0 66 |
4.16 |
1.19 |
1.61 |
1.59 |
0.89J4.38 |
|
|
1853 |
0.92 |
1 33 |
1.03 |
1.12 2.39 |
0.42 |
1.03 |
2.36 |
2.14 |
.95 |
1.67 |
1.35 |
2.39 |
|
|
1854 |
0.83 |
1 60 |
1.25 |
1.88 2.57 |
1.50 |
1.58 |
0.48 |
2.33 |
.82 |
3.25 |
1.43 |
3.25 |
|
|
1855 |
3.37 |
3 08 |
0.80 |
1.33 039 |
1.23 |
1.93 |
0 75 |
0.70 |
.77 |
2.22 |
1.24 |
3.37 |
|
|
1856 |
1.30 |
0.63 |
1.97 2.93 |
0.66 |
1.30 |
423 |
2.42 |
0.87 |
0.88 |
1.20 |
4.23 |
||
|
1857 |
1.50 |
0.54 |
1.55 |
3.68 1.28 |
0.96 |
2.43 |
2.00 |
0.87 |
3.54 |
0.67 |
1.28 |
3.68 |
|
|
1858 |
1.12 |
1.18 |
0.35 |
1.28 1.00 |
3.86 |
1.35 |
2.21 |
1.64 |
1.22 |
1.36 |
1.40 |
3.86 |
53
FAKM DRAINAGE.
The following table shows the record of rain-fall, aa kept for one year ; it was selected as a representative year, the total quantity falling being equal to the average. For the year 1840 : Number of rainy days, 50 ; total rain-fall,
42.00.
|
p 3 |
6-1 c p •^ oo |
February . . |
s 1 |
> V |
P x |
C_| 1 |
C_l £ |
> £ OQ G OB |
September . |
October |
November.. |
December . I |
|
o |
| |
; |
'• |
! |
||||||||
|
i |
0.55 |
0.14 |
2.72 |
0.64 |
||||||||
|
2 |
0.08 |
0.05 |
||||||||||
|
3 |
0.32 |
|||||||||||
|
4 |
1.08 |
0.10 |
||||||||||
|
5 |
1.16 |
0.63 |
||||||||||
|
6 |
0.50 |
|||||||||||
|
7 |
||||||||||||
|
8 |
0.20 |
|||||||||||
|
9 |
0.25 |
3.72 |
||||||||||
|
10 |
2.20 |
1.28 |
||||||||||
|
11 |
0.10 |
|||||||||||
|
12 |
2.12 |
0.54 |
||||||||||
|
13 |
0.14 |
1.12 |
||||||||||
|
14 |
0.58 |
0.70 |
||||||||||
|
15 |
0.36 |
|||||||||||
|
16 |
||||||||||||
|
17 |
||||||||||||
|
18 |
||||||||||||
|
19 |
0.82 |
0.24 |
0.68 |
1.04 |
||||||||
|
20 |
1.54 |
0.44 |
||||||||||
|
21 |
0.98 |
1.04 |
||||||||||
|
22 |
0.52 |
2.20 |
||||||||||
|
23 |
1.68 |
0.96 |
0.18 |
|||||||||
|
24 |
1.40 |
|||||||||||
|
25 |
0.16 |
0.35 |
||||||||||
|
26 |
0.18 |
|||||||||||
|
27 |
0.17 |
0.30 |
||||||||||
|
28 |
||||||||||||
|
29 |
1.80 |
0.10 |
1.40 |
|||||||||
|
30 |
1.42 |
0.08 |
1.04 |
|||||||||
|
31 |
||||||||||||
|
Total |
1.68 |
2.78 |
3.28 |
5.17 |
2.28 |
2.41 |
2.09 |
5.22 |
2.89 |
3.65 |
7.35 |
3.20 |
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 59
The average quantity of rain which has fallen in Wai- tham, during the important months of vegetation, from 1824 to 1858 inclusive — a period of thirty -five years — is for-
April. May. June. July. Aug. Sept.
3.96 3.71 3.18 3.38 4.50 3.52
Average for the six months, 22.25.
It will be noticed, that the average for the month of August is about 33 per cent, larger than for June and July. The quantity of rain falling in each month, as re- gistered at the Cambridge Observatory, is as follows :
MEAN OF OBSERVATIONS TOR TWELVE YEARS.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2.39 3.19 3.47 3.64 3.74 3.13 2.57 5.47 4.27 3.73 4.57 4.31
Spring. Summer. Autumn. Winter.
10.85 11.17 12.57 9.89
Average quantity per year. 44.48.
The quantity falling from January to July, is much less than falls from July to January.
The great quantity of snow which falls in New England during the Winter months, and is carried off mainly in the Spring, usually floods the low lands, and should be taken into account in establishing the size of pipe to be used in a system of drainage. The following observations of the average depth of snow, have been made at the places cited, and are copied, by Blodget, from various published notices :
Oxford Co., Me 12 years 90 inches per year.
Dover, N. H 10 " ,..68.6 " "
Montreal 10 " 67 " "
Burlington, Vt 10 " 85 " "
Worcester, Mass 12 " 55 " "
Amherst, " 7 " 54 " «
Hartford, Conn 24 " 43 " «
Lambertville, N. J. . . 8 " 25.5 " «
Cincinnati 16 " 19 " «
Burlington, Iowa 4 " 15.5 " a
Bel oit, Wisconsin.... 3 » 25 " **
60
FARM DRAINAGE.
One-tenth the depth of snow is taken as its equivalent in water, for general purposes, though it gives too small a quantity of water in southern latitudes, and in extreme latitudes too great a quantity. The rule of reduction of snow to water, in cold climates, is one inch of water to twelve of snow.
The proportion of the annual downfall of rain which is collectable into reservoirs — or, in other words, the per centage of the rain-fall which drains oif— is well shown in a table used by Ellwood Morris, Esq., C. E., in an article on " The Proposed Improvement of the Ohio River" (Jour. Frank. Inst., Jan., 1858), in which we find, that, in eighteen series of observations in Great Britain, the ratio, or per cent, of the rain-fall which drains off is 65J, or nearly two- thirds the rain-fall.
Seven series of observations in America are cited as follows :
|
rf |
.SS |
o-g |
|||
|
Name |
•SJ3 |
«.a |
2 * |
||
|
No. |
of |
•Si |
&.s |
111 |
Authorities. |
|
Drainage Area. |
o"* |
|l |
£§! |
||
|
1 |
Schuylkill Navigation |
||||
|
Reservoirs |
36 |
18 |
50 |
Morris and Smith |
|
|
a |
Eaton Brook... |
34 |
33 |
66 |
|
|
Madison Brook |
35 |
18 |
50 |
||
|
4 |
Patroon's Brook |
46 |
25 |
55 |
[• McAlpine. |
|
5 |
cc u |
42 |
18 |
42 |
|
|
6 |
Lon" Pond |
40 |
18 |
44 |
Boston Water Com 'is. |
|
7 |
West Fork Reservoir. |
36 |
14 |
40 |
W. Milnor Roberts. |
|
Totals |
269 |
134 |
347 |
||
|
Averages |
38 |
19 |
50 |
||
These examples show an average rain-fall of thirty- eight vertical inches, and an annual amount, collectable in reservoirs, of nineteen inches, or fifty per cent.
The percentage of wate^1 of drainage from land unde»
BAIN AND EVAPORATION. 61
drained with tile, would be greater than that which ia collectable in reservoirs from ordinary gathering- grounds.
If a soil were perfectly saturated with water, that is, held as much water in suspension as possible to hold without draining off, and drains were laid at a proper depth from the surface, and in sufficient number to take off all surplus water, then the entire rain-fall upon the surface would be water of drainage — presuming, of course, the land to be level, and the air at saturation, so as to prevent evaporation. The water coming upon the surface, would force out an equal quantity of water at the bottom, through the drains — the time occupied by the process, varying according to the porous or retentive nature of the soil ; but in ordinary circumstances, it would be, perhaps, about forty-eight hours. Drains usually run much longer than this after a heavy rain, and, in fact, many run con- stantly through the year, but they are supplied from lands at a higher level, either near by or at a distance.
If, on the other hand, the soil were perfectly dry, hold- ing no water in suspension, then there would be no water of drainage until the soil had become saturated.
Evaporation is constantly carrying off great quantities of water during the warm months, so that under-drained soil is seldom in the condition of saturation, and, on account of the supply by capillary attraction and by dew, is never thoroughly dry ; but the same soil will, at different times, be at various points between saturation and dry- ness, and the water of drainage will be consequently a greater or less per centage of the rain-fall.
An experiment made by the writer, to ascertain what quantity of water a dry soil would hold in suspension, resulted as follows : A soil was selected of about average porosity, so that the result might be, as nearly as possible, a mean for the various kinds of soil, and dried by several days' baking. The quantity of soil then being carefully
62 FARM DRAINAGE.
measured, a measured quantity of water was supplied slowly, until it began to escape at the bottom. The quantity draining away was measured and deducted from the total quantity supplied. It was thus ascertained that one cubic foot of earth held 0.4826+ cubic feet of water, which is a little more than three and one-half gallons. A dry soil, four feet deep, would hold a body of water equal to a rain-fall of 23.17 inches, vertical depth, which is more than would fall in six months.
The quantity which is not drained away is used for vegetation or evaporated ; and the fact, that the water of drainage is so much greater in proportion to the rain-fall in England than in this country, is owing to the humidity of that climate, in which the evaporation is only about half what it is in this country.
The evaporation from a reservoir surface at Baltimore, during the Summer months, was assumed by Colonel Abert to be to the quantity of rain as two to one.
Dr. Holyoke assigns the annual quantity evaporated at Salem, Mass., at fifty-six inches ; and Colonel Abert quotes several authorities at Cambridge, Mass., stating the quan- tity at fifty-six inches. These facts are given by Mr. Blodget, and also the table below.
QUANTITY OF WATER EVAPORATED, IN INCHES, VERTICAL DEPTH.
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. Uny. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oet. Nov. Dec. Year.
°-88 ll04 1>7T 2l54 415 t54 4'20 SM 3'12 1>93 1'32 1'09 30'03 Ogdensburg,N.Y.,lyr. 1.65 0.82 2.0T 1,63 7.10 6.74 T.79 5.41 7.40 3.95 8.66 1.15 49.87 Syracuse, N. Y., 1 year 0.67 1.48 2.24 3.42 7.81 7.60 9.08 6.85 5.33 3.02 1.33 1.86 50.20
The quantity for Whitehaven, England, is reported by J. F. Miller. It was very carefully observed, from 1843 to 1848 — the evaporation being from a copper vessel, pro- tected from rain. The district is one of the wettest of England — the mean quantity of rain, for the same time, having been 45.25 inches.
This shows a great difference in the capacity of the air
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 63
to absorb moisture in England and the United States ; and as evaporation is a cooling process, there is greater neces- sity for under-draining in this country than in England, supposing circumstances in other respects to be similar.
Evaporation takes place at any point of temperature from 32°, or lower, to 212° — at which water boils. It is increased by heat, but is not caused solely by it — for a north-west wind in New-England evaporates water, and dries the earth more rapidly than the heat alone of a Sum- mer's day ; and when, under ordinary circumstances, eva- poration from a water-surface is slow, it becomes quite active when brought in close proximity to sulphuric acid, or other vapor-absorbing bodies.
The cold which follows evaporation is caused by a loss of the heat which is required for evaporation, and which passes off with the vapor, as a solution, in the atmosphere ; and as heat Iteaves the body to aid evaporation, it is evi- dent that that body cannot be cooled by the process, below the dew-point at which evaporation ceases. The popular notion that a body may be cooled almost to the freezing- point, in a hot Summer day, by the action of heat alone, is, then, erroneous. But still, the amount of heat which is used up in evaporating stagnant water from undrained land, that might otherwise go towards warming the land and the roots of crops, is a very serious loss.
The difference in the temperature of a body, resulting from evaporation, may reach 25° in the desert interior of the American continent ; but, in the Eastern States, it is not often more than 15°.
The temperature of evaporation is the reading of a wet- bulb-thermometer (the bulb being covered with moistened gauze) exposed to the natural evaporation ; and the dif- ference between that reading and the reading of a dry- thermometer, is the expression of the cold resulting from evaporation.
64: FAEM DRAINAGE.
When the air is nearly saturated, the temperature c/f the air rarely goes above 74° ; but, if so, the moisture in the air prevents the passing away of insensible perspiration, and the joint action of heat and humidity exhausts the vital powers, causing sun-stroke, as it is called. At New York city, August 12th to 14th, 1853, the wet-thermo- meter stood at 80° to 84° ; the air, at 90° to 94°. The mortality, from this joint effect, was very great — over two hundred persons losing their lives in the two days, in that city.
From very careful observations, made by Lorin Blodget, in 1853, at Washington, it was found that the difference between the wet and dry thermometer was 18^° at 4 P. M., June 30th, and 16° at 2 P.M. on July 1st— the tempera- ture of the air being 98° on the first day, and 95° on the second; but such excesses are unusual.
The following table has been compiled from Mr. Blodget's notice of the peculiarities of the Summer ol 1853:
The dates are such as were selected to illustrate the ex- treme temperatures of the month, and the degrees repre- sent the differences between the wet and dry thermometer The observations were made at 3 P. M. :
Locality. Dates. Differences. JUNE, 1858.
Burlington, Vt 14th to 30th ranged from 8° to 17°
Montreal 14th to 30th " 6 to 17
Poultney, Iowa 10th to 30th " 9 to 16
Washington 20th to 30th " 8.5 to 16
Baltimore 13th to 30th " 7.4 to 20.2
Savannah 13th to 30th ___1 " 5.2 to 17.3
Austin, Texas 10th to 30th " 4 to 24
Clarkesville, Term. 4th to 30th " 10.3 to 20.5
ArOTTST.
Bloomfield. N. J.,. 9th to 14th ... " 5 to 15
Austin, Texas 6th to 1 2th ... " 0 to 19
Philadelphia 10th to 15th " 8 to 14
Jacksonville, Fla .. 10th to 15th " 6 to 8
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 65
Observations by Lieut. Gillis, at Washington, give mean differences between wet and dry thermometers, from March, 1841, to June, 1842, as follows :
Observations at 3 P. M. :
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May. June. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 8°.08 4°.40 6°.47 5°.37 7°.05 8°.03 8°.89 5°.29 5°. 63 4°.61 4°.77 2°.03
A mean of observations for twenty-five years at the Eadcliffe Observatory, Oxford, England, gives a difference between the wet and dry thermometer equal to about two- thirds the difference, as observed by Lieutenant Gillis, at Washington.
On the 12th day of August, 1853, in Austin, Texas, the air was perfectly saturated at a temperature of 76°, which was the dew-point, or point of the thermometer at which dew began to form. The dew-point varies according to the temperature and the humidity of the atmosphere ; it is usually a few degrees lower than the temperature of evaporation — never higher.
From observations made at Girard College, by Prof. A. D. Bache, in the years 1840 to 1845, we find, that for April, 1844, the dew-point ranged from 4° to 16° lower than the temperature of the air ; in May, from 4° to 14° lower ; in June, from 6° to 20° lower ; in July, from 4° to 17°; in August, from 6° to 15° lower; and in Septem- ber, from 6° to 21° lower. The dew-point is, then, during the important months of vegetation, within about 20° ol the temperature of the air. The temperature of the dew- point, as observed by Prof. Bache, was highest in August, 1843, being 66°, and lowest in January, 1844, being 18° ; in July, 1844, it was 64°, and in February, 1845, it was 25°. Its hourly changes during each day are quite marked, and follow, with some degree of regularity, the changes in the temperature of the air ; their greatest departure from each other being at the hottest hour of the day, which is two or three hours after noon, and the least at the coldest
66 FARM DRAINAGE.
hour which is four or five hours after midnight. The average temperature of the dew-point in April, May, and June, 184:4:, was, at midnight, 50^°, air, 57° ; five hours after midnight, dew-point, 49°, air 54:° ; three hours after noon, dew-point, 54:°, air, 63J°. The average temperature for July, August and September, was, at midnight, dew point, 58i°, air, 65° ; five hours after mid* ight, dew-point, 58°, air, 62° ; three hours after noon, dew point, 60^°, air, 78°. The average temperature for the year was, at mid- night, dew-point, 42°, air, 48° ; five hours after midnight, dew-point, 41°, air, 46° ; three hours after noon, dew-point, 442°, air, 59°.
The relative humidity of the atmosphere, or the amount of vapor held in suspension in the air, in proportion to the amount which it might hold, was, in the year 1858, as given in the journal of the Franklin Institute, for
Philadelphia. Somerset Co.
April 49 per cent. — 2 P. M.
May 59 " 72 "
June 55 " 63 "
July 50 " 61 "
August 55 " 58 "
September 50 " 57 "
The saturation often falls to 30 per cent., but with great variability. Evaporation goes on most rapidly when the per centage of saturation is lowest ; and, as before ob- served, the cause of the excess of evaporation in this country over that of England is the excessive humidity of that climate and the dryness of this. It has also been said that there is greater need for drainage in the United States on this account ; and, as the warmth induced by draining is somewhat, in its eifect, a merchantable product, it may be well to consider it for a moment in that light.
First The drained land comes into condition for
BAIN AND EVAPORATION. 67
working, a week or ten days earlier in the Spring than other lands.
Secondly : The growth of the crops is quickened all through the Summer by an increase of several degrees in the temperature of the soil.
Thirdly : The injurious effects of frost are kept off several days later in the Fall.
Of the value of these conditions, the farmer, who has lost his crops for lack of a few more warm days, may make his own estimates. In Roxbury, Mr. I. P. Rand heats up a portion of his land, for the purpose of raising early plants for the market, by means of hot water carried by iron pipes under the surface of the ground. In this man ner he heats an area equal to 100 feet by 12 feet, by burn- ing about one ton of coal a month. The increase of tempera- ture which, in this case, is caused by that amount of coal, can, in the absence of direct measurement, only be esti- mated ; but it, probably, will average about 30°, day and night, throughout the month. In an acre the area is 36.4 times as great as that heated by one ton of coal ; the cost being in direct proportion to the area, 36.4 tons of coal would be required to heat an acre ; which, at $6 per ton, would cost $217.40. To heat an acre through 10°, would cost, then, $72.47. It may be of interest to consider how much coal would be required to evaporate from an un- drained field that amount of water which might be car- ried oft' by underdrains, but which, without them, is evap- orated from the surface. It may be taken as an approx- imate estimate, that the evaporation from the surface of an undrained retentive field, is equal to two inches vertical depth of water for each of the months of May, June, July, and August; which is equal to fifty-four thou- sand three hundred and five gallons, or eight hundred and sixty-two hogsheads per acre for each month. If this quan- tity of water were evaporated by means of a coal fire,
68 BARM DRAINAGE.
about 22f tons of coal would be consumed which, at $6 a ton, would cost $130. The cost of evaporating the amount of water which would pass off in one day from an aera would be about $4.53. It is probable that about halt as much water would be evaporated from thorough-drained land, though, by some experiments, the proportion' has been made greater — in which case the loss of heat result • ing from an excess of moisture evaporated from undrained retentive land, over that which would be evaporated from drained land, would be equal to that gained by 11-J tons of coal, which would cost $68 ; and this for each acre, in each of the three months. At whatever temperature a liquid vaporizes, it absorbs the same total quantity o/ heat.
The latent heat of watery vapor at 212° is 972° ; tha* is, when water at 212° is converted into vapor at the same- temperature, the amount of heat expended in the process is 972°. This heat becomes latent, or insensible to the thermometer. The heat rendered latent by converting ice into water is about 140°. There are 7.4805 gallons in a cubic foot of water which weighs 62.38 Ibs."
We have seen that a sea of water, more than three feet deep over the whole face of the land, falls annually from the clouds, equal to 4,000 tons in weight to every acre. We would use enough of this water to dissolve the ele merits of fertility in the soil, and fit them for the food of plants. We would retain it all in our fields, long enough to take from it its stores of fertilizing substances, brought from reeking marshes and steaming cities on cloud-wings to our farms. We would, after taking enough of its moisture to cool the parched earth, and to fit the soil for germination and vegetable growth, discharge the surplus, which must otherwise stagnate in the subsoil, by rapid drainage into the natural streams and rivers.
Evaporation proceeds more rapidly from a surface of
RAIN AND EVAPORATION. 69
vrater, than from a surface of land, unless it be a saturated surface. It proceeds more rapidly in the sun than in the shade, and it proceeds again more rapidly in warm than in cold weather. It varies much with the culture of the field, whether in grass, or tillage, or fallow, and with its condition, as to being dry or wet, and with its formation, whether level or hilly. Yet, with all these variations, very great reliance may be placed upon the ascertained results of the observations already at our command.
We have seen that evaporation from a water surface is, in general, greater than from land, and here we may observe one of those grand compensating designs of Providence which exist through all nature.
If the same quantity of water fell upon the sea and the land, and the evaporation were the same from both, then all the rivers running into the sea would soon convey to it all the wrater, and the sea w^ould be full. But though nearly as much water falls on the sea as on the land, yet evaporation is much greater from the water than from land.
About three feet of rain falls upon the water, while the evaporation from a water surface far exceeds that amount. In the neighborhood of Boston, evaporation from water surface is said to be 56 inches in the year, and in the State of New York, about 50 inches ; while, in England, it is put by Mr. Dalton at 44.43 inches, and, by others, much lower.
Again, about three feet of water annually falls upon the land, while the evaporation from the land is but little more than 20 inches. If this water fell upon a flat surface of soil, with an impervious subsoil of rock or clay, we should have some sixteen inches of water in the course of the year more than evaporates from the land. If a given field be dish-shaped, so as to retain it all, it must become a pond, and so remain, except in Summer,
FARM DRAINAGE.
when greater evaporation from a water surface mj,y reduce it to a swamp or marsh.
"With 16 or 13 inches more water falling annually on all our cultivated fields than goes off by evaporation, is it not wise to inquire by what process of Mature or art this vast surplus shall escape ?
Experiments have been made with a view to determine the proportion of evaporation and filtration, upon well- drained land, in different months. From an able article in the N. Y. Agricultural Society for 1854, by George Geddes, we copy the following statement of valuable .bservations upon these points.
It will be observed that, in the different observations collected in this chapter, results are somewhat various. They have been brought together for comparison, and will be found sufficiently uniform for all practical pur- poses in the matter of drainage.
" The experiments upon evaporation and drainage, made, on Mr. Dalton's plan, were in vessels three feet deep, filled with soil just in the condition to secure perfect freedom from excess of water, and the drainage was determined by the amount of water that passed out of the tube at the bottom. These experiments have been most perfectly made in England by Mr. John Dickinson. The following table exhibits the mean of eight years :
|
October to March. |
April to September. |
Total of each year. |
|||||||
|
TEAK. |
Kain. |
Filtra- tion. |
Per cent filtered. |
Kain. |
Filtra- tion. |
Per cent filtered. |
Eain. |
Filtra- tion. |
Per cent filtered |
|
1836.. |
18.80 |
15.55 |
82.7 |
12.20 |
2.10 |
17.3 |
31.00 |
17.65 |
56.9 |
|
1837.. |
11.30 |
6.85 |
60.6 |
9.80 |
0.10 |
1.0 |
21.10 |
6.95 |
32.9 |
|
1838.. |
12.32 |
8.45 |
68.8 |
10.81 |
0.12 |
1.2 |
23.13 |
8.57 |
37.0 |
|
1839.. |
13.87 |
12.31 |
88.2 |
17.41 |
2.60 |
15.0 |
31.28 |
14.91 |
47.6 |
|
1840.. |
11.76 |
8.19 |
69.6 |
9.68 |
0.00 |
0.0 |
21.44 |
8.19 |
38.2 |
|
1841.. |
16.84 |
14.19 |
84.2 |
15.26 |
0.00 |
0.0 |
32.10 |
14.19 |
44.2 |
|
1842 114.28 |
10.46 |
73.2 |
12.15 |
1.30 |
10.7 |
26.43 |
11.76 |
44.4 |
|
|
1843..!12.43 |
7.11 |
57.2 |
14.04 |
0.99 |
7.1 |
26.47 |
8.10 |
36.0 |
|
|
i |
|||||||||
|
Mean . |
13.95 |
10.39 |
74.5 |
12.67 |
0.90 7.1 |
26.61 |
11.29 |
42.4 |
BAIN AND EVAPORATION.
tl A soil that holds no water for the use of plants below six inches, will suffer from drouth in ten days in June, July, or August. If the soil is in suitable condition to hold water to the depth of three feet, it would supply sufficient moisture for the whole months of June, July, and August.
'• M. de la Hire has shown that, at Paris, a vessel, sixteen inches deep, filled with sand and loam, discharged water through the pipe at the bottom until the 'herbs' were somewhat grown, when the discharge ceased, and the rains were insufficient, and it was necessary to water them. The fall of water at Paris is stated, in this account, at twenty inches in the year, which is less than the average, and the experiment must have been made in a very dry season ; but the important point proved by it is, that the plants, when grown up, draw largely from the ground, and thereby much increase the evaporation from a given surface of earth. The result of the experiment is entirely in accordance with what would have been expected by a person conversant with the laws of vegetation.
" The mean of each month for the eight years is :
|
MONTHS. |
Kain. |
Filtration. |
Per cent filtered. |
|
Inches. .84 |
Inches 1 .30 |
70.7 |
|
|
February |
.79 |
1.54 |
78.4 |
|
March .. .. .. |
.61 |
1.08 |
66.6 |
|
April |
.45 |
0.30 |
21.0 |
|
May |
.85 |
0.11 |
5.8 |
|
2.21 |
0.04 |
1.7 |
|
|
July |
2.28 |
0.04 |
1.8 |
|
August . .... . _ |
2.42 |
0.03 |
1.4 |
|
September |
2.64 |
0.37 |
13.9 |
|
October |
2.82 |
1.40 |
49.5 |
|
November |
3.83 |
3.26 |
84.9 |
|
December |
1.64 |
1.80 |
110.0 |
" The filtration from April to September is very small — practically nothing; but during those months we have 12.67 inches of rain — that is, we have two inches a month for evaporation besides the quantity in the earth on the first day of April. From October to March we have 10.39 inches filtered out of 13.95 inches, the whole fall. 'Of this Winter portion of 10.39, we must allow at least six inches for floods running away at the time of the rain, and then we have only 4.3S indies left for the supply of river? and wells.' (Breadmore. p. 34.)
72
FARM DRAINAGE.
u It is calculated in England that the ordinary Summer run of streams does not exceed ten cubic feet per minute per square mile, and that the average for the whole year, due to springs and ordinary rains, is twenty feet per minute per square mile, exclusive of floods — and assuming no very wet or high mountain districts (Breadmore, p. 34) — • which is equal to about four inches over the whole surface. If we add to this the six inches that are supposed to run off in freshets, we have ten inches discharged in the course of the year by the streams. The whole filtration was 11.29 inches — 10.39 in the Winter, and. 90 in the Summer. The remainder, 1.29 inches, is supposed to be consumed by wells and excessive evaporation from marshes and pools, from which the discharge is obstructed, by animals, and in various other ways. These calculations were made from experiments running through eight years, in which the average fail of water was only 26.61 inches per annum. When the results derived from them are applied to our average fall of 35.28 inches, we have for the water that constitutes the Summer flow of our streams 13.25 cubic feet per minute per mile of the country drained, and for the average annual flow, exclusive of freshets, 26.50 cubic feet per mile per minute. That is to say, of the 35.28 inches of water that fall in the course of the year, 5.30 run away in the streams as the average annual flow, 7.95 run away in the freshets, and 20.47 evaporate from the earth's surface, leaving 1 .56 for consumption in various ways. In the whole year the drainage is nearly equal to one cubic foot per second per square mile (.976), no allowance being made for the 1 56 inches which is lost as before stated. These calculations are based upon English experiments. Mr. McAlpine, late State engineer and surveyor, in making his calculations for sup- plying the city of Albany with water (page 22 of his Report to the Water Commissioners), takes 45 per cent of the fall as available for the use of the city. Mr. Henry Tracy, in his Report to the Canal Board of 1849 (page 17), gives th-e results of the investigations in the valleys of Madison Brook, in Madison County, and of Long Pond, near Bofton. Mass.. as follows:
|
y JAR. |
Name of valley. |
Fall of rain and snow in valley. |
Water ran off in inches. |
Evaporation from surfV.ee of ground. |
Eatio of drainage. |
|
18:55 1837 1838 |
Madison Brook. Long Pond Do |
35.26 26.65 38.11 |
15.83 11.70 16.62 |
19.43 14.95 21.49 |
0.449 0.439 0.436 |
|
Mean |
0.441 |
||||
RAIN AND EVAPORATION-.
73
{ Madison Brook drains 6,000 acres, and Long Pond 11,400 acres. Mr. Tracy makes the following comment on this table : ' It appears that the evaporation from the surface of the ground in the valley of Long Pond was about 44 per cent more in 1838 than it was in 1837, while the ratio of the drainage differed less than one per cent the same years.'
'• Dr. Hale states the evaporation from water-surface at Boston to be 56 inches in a year. (Senate Doc., No. 70, for 1853.)
" The following table contains the results arrived at by Mr. Coffin, at Ogdensburgh, and Mr. Conkey. at Syracuse, in regard to the eva- poration from water-surface :
|
MONTHS. |
COFFIN, at Ogdensburgh, in 1838. |
CONKEY, at Syracuse, in 1852. |
||
|
Rain. |
Evaporation. |
Eain. |
Evaporation. |
|
|
January |
2.36 0.97 1.18 0.40 4.81 3.57 1.88 2.55 1.01 2.73 2.07 1.08 |
1.652 0.817 2.067 1.625 7.100 6.745 7.788 5.415 7.400 3.948 3.659 1.146 |
3.673 1.307 3.234 3.524 4.491 3.773 2.887 2.724 2.774 4.620 4.354 4.112 |
0.665 1.489 2.239 3.421 7.309 7.600 9.079 6.854 5.334 3.022 1.325 1.863 |
|
February |
||||
|
March |
||||
|
April |
||||
|
May |
||||
|
June |
||||
|
July |
||||
|
August |
||||
|
September .... October |
||||
|
November December |
||||
|
TOTAL |
24.61 |
49.362 |
41.473 |
50.200 |
" The annual fall of water in England, is stated, by Mr. Dalton, to be 32 inches. In this State, it is 35.28 inches. The evaporation from water-surface in England, is put, by Mr. Dalton, at 44.43 inches. The fall is less, and the evaporation is less, in England than here ; and the fall, in each case, bears the same proportion to 'the evaporation, very nearly ; and it appears that the experiments made on the two sides of the ocean, result in giving very nearly the same per centage of drain- age. In England, it is 42.4 per cent. ] in this State, it is 44.1. In England, the experiments were made on a limited scale compared with ours ; but the results agree so well, that great confidence may safely be placed in them."
In reviewing the whole subject of rain, and of evapor-
74 FAKM DRAINAGE.
ation and filtration, we seem to have evidence to justify the opinion, that with considerable more rain in this country than in England, and with a greater evaporation, because of a clearer sky and greater heat, we have a larger quantity of surplus water to be disposed of by drainage.
The occasion for thorough-drainage, however, is greatel in the Northern part of the United States than in England, upon land of the same character ; because, as we have already seen, rain falls far more regularly there than here, and never in such quantities in a single day ; and because there the land is open to be worked by the plough nearly every day in the year, while here for several months our fields are locked up in frost, and our labor for the Spring crowded into a few days. There, the water which falls in Winter passes into the soil, and is drained off as it falls ; while here, the snow accumulates to a great depth, and in thawing floods the land at once.
Both here and in England, much of the land requires no under-draining, as it has already a subsoil porous enough to allow free passage for all the surplus water ; and it is no small part of the utility of understanding the principles of drainage, that it will enable farmers to dis- criminate— at a time when draining is somewhat of a fashionable operation with amateurs — between land that does and land that does not require BO expensive an operation.
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS. 75
CHAPTEE IY.
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE.
What is High Land ? — Accidents to Crops from Water. — Do Lands need Drainage in America ? — Springs. — Theory of Moisture, with Illustrations. — Water of Pressure. — Legal Rights as to Draining our Neighbor's Wella and Land. — What Lands require Drainage ?— Horace Greeley's Opinion. — Drainage more Necessary in America than in England ; Indications of too much Moisture. — Will Drainage Pay?
BY " high land," is meant land, the surface of which is not overflowed, as distinguished from swamps, marshes, and the like low lands. How great a proportion of such lands would be benetitted by draining, it is impossible to estimate.
The Committee on Draining, in their Report to the State Agricultural Society of New York, in 1848, assert that, " There is not one farm out of every seventy-five in this State, but needs draining — yes, much draining — to bring it into high cultivation. Nay, we may venture to say, that every wheat-field would produce a larger and finer crop if properly drained." The committee further say : " It will be conceded, that no farmer ever raised a good crop of grain on wet ground, or on a field where pools of water become masses of ice in the Winter. In such cases, the grain plants are generally frozen out and perish ; or, if any survive, they never arrive at maturity, nor pro- duce a well-developed seed. In fact, every observing far- mer knows that stagnant water, whether on the surface of his soil, or within reach of the roots of his plants, always does them injury."
76 FARM DRAINAGE.
The late Mr. Delafield, one of the most distinguished agriculturists of New York, said in a public address :
" We all well know that wheat and other grains, as well as grasses, are never fully developed, and never produce good seed, when the roots are soaked in moisture. No man ever raised good wheat from a wet or moist subsoil. Now, the farms of this country, though at limes during the Summer they appear dry. and crack open on the surface, are not, in fact, dry farms, for reasons already named. On the contrary, for nine months out of twelve, they are moist or wet; and we need no better evidence of the fact, than the annual freezing out of the plants, and consequent poverty of many crops."
If we listen to the answers of farmers, when asked as to the success of their labors, we shall be surprised, perhaps, to observe how much of their want of success is attributed to accidents, and how uniformly these accidents result from causes which thorough draining would remove. The wheat-crop of one would have been abundant, had it not been badly frozen out in the Fall ; while another has lost nearly the whole of his, by a season too wet for ins land. A farmer at the West has planted his corn early, and late rains have rotted the seed in the ground ; while one at the East has been compelled, by the same rains, to wait so long before planting, that the season has been too short. Another has worked his clayey farm so wet, be- cause he had not time to wait for it to dry, that it could not be properly tilled. And so their crops have wholly or par- tially failed, and all because of too much cold water in the soil. It would seem, by the remarks of those who till the earth, as if there were never a season just right — as if Provi • dence had bidden us labor for bread, and yet sent down the rains of heaven so plentifully as always to blight our har- vests. It is rare that we do not have a most remarkable season, with respect to moisture, especially. Our pota- toes are rotted by the Summer showers, or cut off by a Summer drought; and when, as in the season of 1856, ic
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS. 77
New England, they are neither seriously diseased nor dried up, we find at harvest-time that the promise has be- lied the fulfillment ; that, after all the fine show above ground, the season has been too wet, and the crop is light. We frequently hear complaint that the season was too cold for Indian corn, and that the ears did not fill ; or that a sharp drought, following a wet Spring, has cut short the crop. We hear no man say, that he lacked skill to culti- vate his crop. Seldom does a farmer attribute his failure to the poverty of his soil. He has planted and cultivated in such a way, that, in a favorable season, he would have reaped a fair reward for his toil ; but the season has been too wet or too dry ; and, with full faith that farming will pay in the long run, he resolves to plant the same land in the same manner, hoping in future for better luck.
Too much cold water is at the bottom of most of these complaints of unpropitious seasons, as well as of most of our soils ; and it is in our power to remove the cause of these complaints and of our want of success.
" The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves."
We must underdrain all the land we cultivate, that Nature has not already underdrained, and we shall cease complaints of the seasons. The advice of Cromwell to his soldiers : " Trust God, and keep your powder dry," affords a good lesson of faith and works to the farmer. We shall seldom have a season, upon properly drained land, that is too wet, or too cold, or even too dry ; for thorough drain- ing is almost as sure a remedy for a drought, as for a flood.
Do lands need underdraining in America f It is a common error to suppose that, because the sun shines more brightly upon this country than upon England, and because almost every Summer brings such a drought here as is unknown there, her system of thorough drainage can
78 FARM DRAINAGE.
have no place in agriculture on this side of the Atlantic. It is true that we have a clearer sky and a drier climate than are experienced in England; but it is also true that although we have a far less number of showers and of rainy days, we have a greater quantity of rain in the year.
The necessity of drainage, however, does not depend sc much upon the quantity of water which falls or flows upon land, nor upon the power of the sun to carry it off by evaporation, as upon the character of t?te subsoil. The vast quantity of water which Nature pours upon every acre of soil annually, were it all to be removed by e vapor - ation alone, would render the whole country barren ; but Nature herself has kindly done the work of draining upon a large proportion of our land, so that only a healthful proportion of the water which falls on the earth, passes off at the surface by the influence of the sun.
If the subsoil is of sand or gravel, or of other porous earth, that portion of the water not evaporated, passes off below by natural drainage. If the subsoil be of clay, rock, or other impervious substances, the downward course of flie water is checked, and it remains stagnant, or bursts out upon the surface in the form of springs.
As the primary object of drainage is to remove surplus crater, it may be well to consider with some care
THE SOURCES OF MOISTURE.
Springs. — These are, as has been suggested, merely the water of rain and snow, impeded in its downward percola- tion, and collected and poured forth in a perennial flow at a lower level.
The water which faZls in the form of rain and snow upon the soil of the whole territory of the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, each year, is sufficient to cover it to the depth of more than 3 feet. It comes upon the
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS. 79
earth, not daily in gentle dews to water the plants, but at long, unequal intervals, often in storms, tempests, and showers, pouring out, sometimes, in a single day, more than usually falls in a whole month.
What becomes of all this moisture, is an inquiry espe- cially interesting to the agriculturist, upon whose fruitful fields this flood of water annually descends, and whose labor in seed-time would be destroyed by a single Summer shower, were not Nature more thoughtful than he, of his welfare. Of the water which thus falls upon cultivated fields, a part runs away into the streams, either upon the surface, or by percolation through the soil ; a part is taken up into the air by evaporation, while a very small pro- portion enters into the constitution of vegetation. The proportion which passes off by percolation varies accord- ing to the nature of the soil in the locality where it falls.
Usually, we find the crust of the earth in our cultivated fields, in strata, or layers: first, a surface-soil of a few inches of a loamy nature, in which clay or sand pre- dominates ; and then, it may be, a layer of sand or gravel, freely admitting the passage of water ; and, perhaps, next, and within two or three feet of the surface, a stratum of clay, or of sand or gravel cemented with some oxyd of iron, through which water passes very slowly, or not at all. These strata are sometimes regular, extending at an equal depth over large tracts, and having a uniform dip, or in- clination. Oftener, however, in hilly regions especially, they are quite irregular — the impervious stratum fre- quently having depressions of greater or less extent, and holding water, like a bowl. Not unfrequently, as we cut a ditch upon a declivity, we find that the dip of the strata below has no correspondence with the visible surface of the field, but that the different strata lie nearly level, or are much broken, while the surface has a regular inclina- tion.
80 FARM DRAINAGE.
Underlying all soils, at greater 01 less depth, is found some bed of rock, or clay, impervious to water, usually at but few feet below the surface — the descending water meeting with obstacles to its regular descent. The ten- dency of the rain-water which falls upon the earth, is to sink directly downward by gravitation. Turned aside, however, by the many obstacles referred to, it often passes obliquely, or almost horizontally, through the soil. The drop which falls upon the hill-top sinks, perhaps, a few inches, meets with a bed of clay, glides along upon it for many days, and is at last borne out to be drunk up by the sun on some far-off slope ; another, falling upon the sand- plain, sinks at once to the " water-line," or line of level water, which rests on clay beneath, and, slowly creeping along, helps to form a swamp or bog in the valley.
Sometimes, the rain which falls upon the high land is collected together by fissures in the rocks, or by seams or ruptures in the impervious strata below the surface, and finds vent in a gushing spring on the hill-side.
We feel confident that no better illustration of the theory of springs, as connected with our subject, can be found, than that of Mr. Girdwood, in the Cyclopedia of Agriculture — a work from which we quote the more liberally, because it is very expensive and rare in America:
" When rain falls on a tract of country, part of it flows over the sur- face, and makes its escape by the numerous natural and artificial courses which may exist, while another portion is absorbed by the soil and the porous strata which lie under it.
" Let the following diagram represent such a tract of country, and let
D
Fig. 5. the dark portions represent clay or other impervious strata while the
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS. 81
lighter portions represent layers of gravel, sand, or chalk, permitting a free passage to water.
" When rain falls in such a district, after sinking through the surface- layer (represented in the diagram by a narrow band), it reaches th& stratified layers beneath. Through these it still further sinks, if they are porous, until it reaches some impervious stratum, which arrests its directly-downward course, and compels it to find its way along its upper surface. Thus, the rain which falls on the space represented between B and D. is compelled, by the impervious strata, to flow towards C. Here it is at once absorbed, but is again immediately arrested by the imper vious layer E : it is, therefore, compelled to pass through the porous stratum C, along the surface of p] to A, where it pours forth in a foun- tain, or forms a rnorass or swamp, proportionate in size or extent to the tract of country between B and D, or the quantity of rain which falls upon it. In such a case as is here represented, it will be obvious that the spring may often be at a great distance from the district from which it derives its supplies ] and this accounts for the fact, that drainage- works on a large scale sometimes materially lessen the supply of water at places remote from the scene of operations.
4i In the instance given above, the water forming the spring is repre- sented as gaining access to the porous stratum, at a point where it crops out from beneath an impervious one, and as passing along to its point of discharge at a considerable depth, and under several layers of various characters. Sometimes, in an undulating country, large tracts may rest immediately upon some highly-porous stratum — as from B to C, in the following diagram — rendering the necessity for draining less ap- parent ; while the country from A to B, and from C to D, may be full of
Fig. 6.
springs and marshes — arising, partly, from the rain itself, which falls in these latter districts, being unable to find a way of escape, and partlv from the natural drainage of the more porous soils adjoining being dis- charged upon it.
" Again : the rocks lying under the surface are sometimes so full of fissures, that, although they themselves are impervious to water, yet, 4*
02 FARM DRAINAGE,
so completely do these fissures carry off rain, that, in some parts ui the county of Durham, they render the sinking of wells useless, and make it necessary for the farmers to drive their cattle many miles for water. It sometimes happens that these fissures, or cracks, penetrate to enormous depths, and are of great width, and filled with sand or clay. These are termed faults by miners; and some, which we lately examined, at dis- tances of from three to four hundred yards from the surface, were from five to fifteen yards in width. These faults, when of clay, are generally the cause of springs appearing at the surface : they arrest the progress of the water in some of the porous strata, and compel it to find an exit, by passing to the surface between the clay and the faces of the ruptured strata. When the fault is of sand or gravel, the opposite effect takes place, if it communicates with any porous stratum ; and water, which may have been flowing over the surface, on reaching it, is at once ab- sorbed. In the following
Fig. 7.
diagram, let us suppose that B represents such a clay-fault as has been described, and that A represents a sandy one, and that C and D repre- sent porous strata charged with water. On the water reaching the fault at B, it will be compelled to find its way to the surface — there forming a spring, and rendering the retentive soil, from B to A, wet ; but, as soon as it reaches the sandy-fault at A, it is immediately absorbed, and again reaches the porous strata, along which it had traveled before being forced to the surface at B. It will be observed, that the strata at the points of dislocation are not represented as in a line with the portions from which they have been dissevered. This is termed the up- throw of the fault, as at B j and the downthrow, as at A. For the sake of the illustration, the displacement is here shown as very slight ; but, in some cases, these elevations and depressions of the strata extend to many hundreds of feet — as, for instance, at the mines of the British Iron Company, at Cefn-Mawre, in North Wales, where the downthrow of the fault is 360 feet.
" Sometimes the strata are disposed in the form of a basin. In this case, the water percolating through the more elevated ground — neai
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS.
83
what may be called the rim— collects in the lower parts of the strata towards the centre, there forcing its way to the surface, if the upper impervious beds be thin ; or, if otherwise, remaining a concealed reser- voir, ready to yield its supplies to the shaft or boring-rod of the well- sinker, and sometimes forming a living fountain capable of rising many feet above the surface. It is in this way that what are called Artesian wells are formed. The following diagram represents such a disposition of the strata as has just been referred to. The rain which falls on the
Fig. 8.
tracts of country at A and B, gradually percolates towards the centre of the basin, where it may be made to give rise to an Artesian well, as at C. by boring through the superincumbent mass of clay ; or it may force itself to the surface through the thinner part of the layer of clay, as at D— there forming a spring, or swamp.
" Again : the higher parts of hilly ground are sometimes composed of very porous and absorbent strata, while the lower portions are more impervious— the soil and subsoil being of a very stiff and retentive description. In this case, the water collected by the porous layers is prevented from finding a ready exit, when it reaches the impervious layers, by the stiff surface-soil. The water is by this means dammed up in some measure, and acquires a considerable degree of pressure; and, forcing itself to the day at various places, it forms those extensive " weeping';-banks which have such an injurious effect upon many of our mountain-pastures. This was the form of spring, or swamp, to the removal of which Elkington principally turned his attention; and the following diagram, taken from a description of his system of draining. Will explain the stratification and springs referred to, more clearly.
Fig. 9.
84 FARM DRAINAGE.
" In some districts, where clay forms the staple of the soil, a bed of sand or gravel, completely saturated with water, occurs at the depth of a few feet from the surface, following all the undulations of the country, and maintaining its position, in relation to the surface, over con- siderable tracts, here and there pouring forth its waters in a spring, or denoting its proximity, by the subaquatic nature of the herbage. Such a configuration is represented in the following diagram, where A repre- sents the surface-soil • B, the impervious subsoil of clay ; C, the bed of sandy-clay or gravel ; and D, the lower bed of clay, resting upon the rocky strata beneath.
Fig. 10.
"Springs sometimes communicate with lakes or pools, at higher levels. In such cases, the quantity of water discharged is generally so great, as to form at once a brook or stream of some magnitude. These, there- fore, hardly come under the ordinary cognizance of the land-drainer, and are, therefore, here merely referred to."
THE WATER OF PRESSURE.
Water that issues from the land, either constantly, periodically, or even intermittently, may, perhaps, be properly termed a spring. But there is often much water in the soil which did not fall in rain upon that particular field, and which does not issue from it in any defined stream, hut which is slowly passing through it by perco- lation from a higher source, to ooze out into some stream, or to pass off by evaporation ; or, perhaps, farther on, to fall into crevices in the soil, and eventually form springs. As we find it in our field, it is neither rain-water, which has there fallen, nor spring-water, in any sense. It has been appropriately termed the water of pressure, to dis- distinguish it from both rain and spring- water ; and the recognition of this term will certainly be found conve-
DRAINAGE OF HIGH LANDS. 85
nient to all who are engaged in the discussion of drainage.
The distinction is important in a legal point of view, as relating to the right of the land-owner to divert the sources of supply to mill-streams, or to adjacent lower lands. It often happens that an owner of land on a slope may desire to drain his field, while the adjacent owner below, may not only refuse to join in the drainage, but may believe that he derives an advantage from the surface-washing or the percolation from his higher neighbor. He may believe that, by deep drainage above, his land will be dried up and rendered worthless ; or, he may desire to collect the water which thus perco- lates, into his land, and use it for irrigation, or for a water-ram, or for the supply of his barn-yard. May the upper owner legally proceed with the drainage of his own land, if he thus interfere with the interests of the man below ?
Again : wherever drains have been opened, we already hear complaints of their effects upon wells. In our good town of Exeter, there seems to be a general impression on one street, that the drainage of a swamp, formerly owned by the author, has drawn down the wells on that street, situated many rods distant from the drains. Those wells are upon a sandy plain, with underlying clay, and the drains are cut down upon the clay, and into it, and may possibly draw off the water a foot or two lower through the whole village — if we can regard the water line running through it as the surface of a pond, and the swamp as a dam across its outlet.
The rights of land-owners, as to running water over their premises, have been fruitful of litigation, but are now well defined. ' In general, in the language of Judge Story,
" Every proprietor upon each bank of 'a river, is entitled to the land
86 FARM DRAINAGE.
covered with water in front of his bank to the middle thread of the stream, &c. In virtue of this ownership, he has a right to the use of the water flowing over it in its natural current, without diminution or obstruction. The consequence of this principle is. that no proprietoi has a right to use the water to the prejudice of another. It is wholly immaterial whether the party be a proprietor above or below, in the course of the river, the right being common to all the proprietors on the river. No one has a right to diminish the quantity which will, according to the natural current flow to the proprietor below, or to throw it back upon a proprietor above."
Chief Justice Richardson, of New Hampshire, thus briefly states the same position :
" In general, every man has ft right to the use o the water flowing in a stream through his land, and if any one divert the water from its natural channel, or throw it back; so as to deprive him of the use of it. the law will give him redress. But one man may acquire, by grant, a right to throw the water back upon the land of another, and long usage may be evidence of such a grant. It is. however, well settled that a man acquires no such right by merely being the first to make use of the water.-''
We are not aware that it has ever been held by any court of law, or -even asserted, that a land-owner may not intercept the percolating water in his soil for any pur- pose and at his pleasure ; nor have we in mind any case in which the draining out of water from a well, by drain- age for agricultural purposes, has subjected the owner of the land to compensation.
It is believed that a land-owner has the right to follow the rules of good husbandry in the drainage of his land, BO far as the water of pressure is concerned, without responsibility for remote consequences to adjacent owners, to the owners of distant wells or springs that may be affected, or to mill-owners.
In considering the effect of drainage on streams and rivers, it appears that the results of such operations, so far as they can be appreciated, are, to lessen the value of water powers, by increasing the flow of water in times of
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE ? 87
freshets, and lessening it in times of drought. It is sup- posed in this country, that clearing the land of timber has sensibly affected the value of " mill privileges," by in- creasing evaporation, and diminishing the streams. No mill-owner has been hardy enough to contend that a land- owner may not legally cut down his own timber, whatever the effect on the streams. So, we trust, no court will ever be found, which will restrict the land-owner in the highest culture of his soil, because his drainage may affect the capacity of a mill-stream to turn the water-wheels.
To return from our digression. It is necessary, in order to a correct apprehension of the work which our drains have to perform, to form a correct opinion as to how much of the surplus moisture in our field is due to each of the three causes to which we have referred — to wit, rain- water, which falls upon it ; springs, which burst up from below ; and water of pressure, stagnant in, or slowly per- colating through it. The rain-tables will give us informa- tion as to the first ; but as to the others, we must form our opinion from the structure of the earth around us, and observation tipon the field itself, by its natural phenomena and by opening test-holes and experimental. ditches. Hav- ing gained accurate knowledge of the sources of mois- ture, we may then be able to form a correct opinion whe- ther our land requires drainage, and of the aid which Nature requires to carry off the surplus water.
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE ?
The more one studies the subject of drainage, the less inclined will he be to deal in general statements. " Do you think it is profitable to underdrain land ?" is a ques- tion a thousand times asked, and yet is a question that admits of no direct general answer. Is it profitable to fence land ? is it profitable to plow land? are questions of much the same character. The answers tc them all de-
88 FARM DRAINAGE.
pend npon circumstances. There is land that may be profitably drained, and fenced, and plowed, and there is a great deal that had better be let alone. Whether drain- ing is profitable or not, depends on the value and character of the land in question, as well as on its condition as to water. Where good land is worth one hundred dollars an acre, it might be profitably drained ; when, if the same land were worth but the Government price of $1.25 an acre, it might be better to make a new purchase in the neighborhood, than to expend ten times its value on a tract that cannot be worth the cost of the operation. Drainage is an expensive operation, requiring much labor and capital, and not to be thought of in a pioneer settle- ment by individual emigrants. It comes after clearing, after the building of log-houses and mills, and school-houses, and churches, and roads, when capital and labor are abun- dant, and when the good lands, nature-drained, have been all taken up.
And, again, whether drainage is profitable, depends not only on the value, but on the character of the soil as to productiveness when drained. There is much land that would be improved by drainage, that cannot be profitably drained. It would improve almost any land in ISTew Eng- land to apply to it a hundred loads of stable manure to the acre ; but whether such application would be profit- able, must depend upon the returns to be derived from it. Horace Greeley, who has his perceptions of common affairs, and especially of all that relates to progress, wide awake, said, in an address at Peekskill, K. Y. :
" My deliberate judgment is. that all lands which are worth plow- ing, which is not the case with all lands that are plowed, would be im- proved by draining ; but I know that our farmers are neither able nor ready to drain to that extent, nor do I insist that it would pay while land is so cheap, and labor and tile so dear as at present. Ultimately, I believe, we shall tile-drain nearly all our level, or moderately sloping lands, that are worth cultivation."
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE ? 89
Whether land would be improved by drainage, is one question, and whether the operation will^a?/, is quite ano- ther. The question whether it will pay, depends on the value of the land before drainage, the cost of the opera- tion, and the value of the land when completed. And the cost of the operation includes always, not only the money and labor expended in it, but also the loss to other land of the owner, by diverting from it the capital which would otherwise be applied to it. Where labor and capi- tal are limited so closely as they are in all our new States, it is a question not only how can they be profitably ap- plied, but how can they be most profitably applied. A proprietor, who has money to loan at six per cent, interest, may well invest it in draining his land ; when a working man, who is paying twelve per cent, interest for all the capital he employs, might ruin himself by making the same improvement.
DO ALL LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE?
Our opinion is, that a great deal of land does not in any sense require drainage, and we should differ with Mr. Greeley, in the opinion that all lands worth ploughing, would be improved by drainage. Nature has herself thor- oughly drained a large proportion of the soil. There is a great deal of finely-cultivated land in England, renting at from five to ten dollars per acre, that is thought there to require no drainage.
In a published table of estimates by .Mr. Denton, inade in 1855, it is supposed that Great Britain, including Eng- land, Scotland, and Wales, contain 43,958,000 acres of land, cultivated and capable of cultivation ; of which he sets down as " wet land," or land requiring drainage, 22,890,004 acres, or about one half the whole quantity. His estimate is, that only about 1,365,000 acres had then been permanently drained, and that it would cost about
90 FARM DRAINAGE.
107 millions of pounds to complete the operation, esti* mating the cost at about twenty shillings, or live dollars per acre.
These estimates are valuable in various views of our subject. They answer with some definiteness the question so often asked, whether all lands require drainage, and they tend to correct the impression, which is prevalent in this country, that there is something in the climate of Great Britain that makes drainage there essential to good cultivation on any land. The fact is not so. There, as in America, it depends upon the condition and character of the soil, more than upon the quantity of rain, or any condition of climate, whether drainage is required or not. Generally, it will be found on investigation, that so far as climate, including of course the quantity and regularity of the rain-fall, is concerned, drainage is more necessary in America than in Great Britain — the quantity of rain being in general greater in America, and far less regular in its fall. This subject, however, will receive a more careful consideration in another place.
If in America, as in Great Britain, one half the cul- tivable land require drainage, or even if but a tenth of that half require it, the subject is of vast importance, and it is no less important for us to apprehend clearly what part of our land does not require this expenditure, than to learn how to treat properly that which does require it.
To resume the inquiry, what lands require drainage ? it may be answered —
ALL LANDS OVERFLOWED IN SUMMER REQUIRE DRAINAGE.
Lands overflowed by the regular tides of the ocean require drainage, whether they lie upon the sea-shore, or upon rivers or bays. But th'.s drainage involves embank- ments, and a peculiar mode of procedure, of which it 13 not now proposed to treat.
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE?- 91
Again, all lands overflowed by Summer freshets, aa upon rivers arid smaller stream?, require drainage. These, too, usually require embankments, and excavations of channels or outlets, not within the usual scope of what is termed thorough drainage. For a further answer to the question — what lands require drainage ? the reader is re- ferred to the chapters which treat of the effect of drainage upon the soil.
SWAMPS AND BOGS REQUIRE DRAINAGE.
No argument is necessary to convince rational men that the very extensive tracts of land, which are usually known as swamps and bogs, must, in some way, be relieved of their surplus water, before they can be rendered fit for cultivation. The treatment of this class of wet lands is so different from that applied to what we term upland, that it will be found more convenient to pass the subject by with this allusion, at present, and consider it more systematically under a separate head.
ALL HIGH LANDS THAT CONTAIN TOO MUCH WATER AT ANT SEASON, REQUIRE DRAINAGE.
Draining has been defined, " The art of rendering land not only so free of moisture as that no superfluous water shall remain in it, but that no water shall remain in it so long as to injure, or even retard the healthy growth ol plants required for the use of man and beast."
Some plants grow in water. Some, even spring from the bottom of ponds, and have no other life than such a position affords. But most plants, useful to man, are drowned by being overflowed even for a short time, and are injured by any stagnant water about their roots. Why this is so, it is not easy to explain. Most of our know- ledge on these points, is derived from observation. We know that fishes live in water, and if we would propagate
92 FARM DRAINAGE.
them, we prepare ponds and streams for the purpose. Our domestic anrnals live on land, and we do not put them into fish-ponds to pasture. There are useful plants which thrive best in water. Such is the cranberry, notwithstand- ing all that has been said of its cultivation on upland. And there are domestic fowls, such as ducks and geese, that require pools of water ; but we do not hence infer that our hens and chickens would be better for daily im- mersion. All lands, then, require drainage, that contain too much water, at any season for the intended crops.
This will be found to be an important element in our rule. Land may require drainage for Indian corn, that may not require it for grass. Most of the cultivated grasses are improved in quality, and not lessened in quan- tity, by the removal of stagnant water in Summer ; but there are reasons for drainage for hoed crops, which do not apply to our mowing fields. In !N"ew England, we have for a few weeks a perfect race with Nature, to get our seeds into the ground before it is too late. Drained land may be plowed and planted several weeks earlier than land undrained, and this additional time for prepara- tion is of great value to the farmer. Much of this same land would be, by the first of June, by the time the ordinary planting season is past, sufficiently drained by Nature, and a grass crop upon it would be, perhaps, not at all benefi tted by thorough-drainage ; so that it is often an important consideration with reference to this opera- tion, whether a given portion of our farm may not be most profitably kept in permanent grass, and maintained in fer- tility by top-dressing, or by occasional plowing and re- eeeding in Autumn. It is certainly convenient to have all our fields adapted to our usual rotation, and it is for each man to balance for himself this convenience against the cost of drainage in each particular case.
What particular crops are most injured b\ stagnant
WHAT LAtfDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE? 93
water in the soil, or by the too tardy percolation of rain- water, may be determined by observation. How stagnant water injures plants, is not, as has been suggested, easily understood in all its relations. It doubtless retards the decomposition of the substances which supply their nutri- ment, and it reduces the temperature of the soil. It has been suggested, that it prevents or checks perspiration and introsusception, and it excludes the air which is essen- tial to the vegetation of most plants. Whatever the theory, the fact is acknowledged, that stagnant water in as well as on the soil, impedes the growth of all our valu- able crops, and that drainage soon cures the evil, by re- moving the effect with its cause. And the remedy seems to be almost instantaneous ; for, on most upland, it is found that by the removal of stagnant water, the soil is in a single season rendered fit for the growth of cultivated crops. In low meadows, composed of peat and swamp mud, in many cases, exposure to the air for a year or two after drainage, is often found to enhance the fertility of the soil, which contains, frequently, acids which need cor- rection.
INDICATIONS OF TOO MUCH MOISTURE.
It has already been suggested, that motives of con- venience may induce us to drain our lands — that we may have a longer season in which to work them ; and that there may be cases where the crop would flourish if plan! ed at precisely the right time, where yet we cannot well, without drainage, seasonably prepare for the crop. Generally, however, lands too wet seasonably to plant, will give indications, throughout the season, of hidden water producing its ill effects.
If the land be in grass, we find that aquatic plants, like rushes or water grasses, spring up with the seeds we have sown, and, in a few years, have possession of the field, and we are soon compelled to plow up the sod, and lay
94: FARM DRAINAGE.
it again to grass. If it be in wheat or other grain, we Bee the field spotted and uneven ; here a portion on some slight elevation, tall and dark colored, and healthy ; and there a little depression, sparsely covered with a low and sickly growth. An American traveling in England in the growing season, will always be struck with the /perfect evenness of the fields of grain upon the well- drained soil. Journeying through a considerable portion of England and Wales with intelligent English farmers, we were struck with their nice perception on this point.
The slightest variation in the color of the wheat in the same or different fields, attracted their instant attention.
" That field is not well-drained ; the corn is too light- colored." " There is cold water at the bottom there ; the cornv cannot grow ;" were the constant criticisms, as we passed across the country. Inequalities that, in our more careless cultivation, we should pass by without observa- tion, were at once explained by reference to the condition of the land as to water.
The drill-sowing of wheat, and the careful weeding it with the horse-hoe and by hand, are additional reasons why the English fields should present a uniform appear- ance, and why any inequalities should be fairly referable to the condition of the soil.
Upon a crop of Indian corn, the cold water lurking below soon places its unmistakable mark. The blade comes up yellow and feeble. It takes courage in a few days of bright sunshine in June, and tries to look hopeful, but a shower or an east wind again checks it. It had already more trouble than it could bear, and turns pale again. Tropical July and August induce it to throw up a feeble stalk, and to attempt to spindle and silk, like other corn. It goes through all the forms of vegetation, and yields at last a single nubbin for the pig. Indian corn
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE? 95
must have land that is dry in Summer, or it cannot repay the labor of cultivation.
Careful attention to the subject will soon teach any farmer what parts of his land are injured by too much water; and having determined that, the next question should be, whether the improvement of it by drainage will justify the cost of the operation.
WILL IT PAY?
Drainage is a permanent investment. It is not an operation like the application of manure, which we should expect to see returned in the form of salable crops in one or two years, or ten at most, nor like the labor applied in cultivating an annual crop. The question is not whether drainage will pay in one or two years, but will it pay in the long run ? Will it, when completed, return to the farmer a fair rate of interest for the money expended? Will it be more profitable, on the whole, than an invest- ment in bank or railway shares, or the purchase of West- ern lands ? Or, to put the question in the form in which an English land-owner would put it, will the rent of the land improved by drainage, be permanently increased enough to pay a fair interest on the cost of the improve- ment ?
Let us bring out this idea clearly to the American farmer by a familiar illustration. Your field is worth to you now one hundred dollars an acre. It pays you, in a series of years, through a rotation of planting, sowing, and grass, a nett profit of six dollars an acre, above all expenses of cultivation and care.
Suppose, now, it will cost one-third of a hundred dol- lars an acre to drain it, and you expend on each three acres one hundred dollars, what must the increase of your crops be, to make this a fair investment ? Had you ex- pended the hundred dollars in labor, to produce a crop of
96 FARM DRAINAGE.
cabbages, you ought to get your money all back, with a fair profit, the first year. Had you expended it in guano or other special manures, whose beneficial properties are exhausted in some two or three years, your expenditure should be returned within that period. But the improve- ment by drainage is permanent ; it is done for all time to come. If, therefore, your drained land shall pay you a fair rate of interest on the cost of drainage, it is a good investment. Six per cent, is the most common rate of in- terest, and if, therefore, each three acres of your drained land shall pay you an increased annual income of six dol- lars, your money is fairly invested. This is at the rate of two dollars an acre. How much increase of crop will pay this two dollars ? In the common rotation of Indian corn, potatoes, oats, wheat, or barley, and grass, two or three bushels of corn, five or six bushels of potatoes, as many bushels of oats, a bushel or two of wheat, two or three bushels of barley, will pay the two dollars. Who, that has been kept back in his Spring's work by the wetness of his land, or has been compelled to replant because his seed has rotted in the ground, or has experienced any of the troubles incident to cold wet seasons, will not admit at once, that any land which Nature has not herself thoroughly drained, will, in this view, pay for such im- provement ?
But far more than this is claimed for drainage. In England, where such operations have been reduced to a system, careful estimates have been made, not only of the cost of drainage, but of the increase of crops by reason of the operation.
In answer to questions proposed by a Board of Commis- sioners, in 1848, to persons of the highest reputation for knowledge on this point, the increase of crops by drainage was variously stated, but in no case at less than a paying rate. One gentleman says : " A sixth of increase in
WHAT LANDS REQUIRE DRAINAGE? 97
produce of grain crops may be taken as the very lowest estimate, and, in actual result, it is seldom less than one- fourth. In very many cases, after some following culti- vation, the produce is doubled, whilst the expense of working the land is much lessened." Another says : " In many instances, a return of fully 25 per cent, on the ex- penditure is realized, and in some even more." A third remarks, " My experience and observation have chiefly been in heavy clay soils, where the result of drainage is eminently beneficial, and where I should estimate the in- creased crop at six to ten bushels (wheat) per statute acre."
These are estimates made upon lands that had already been under cultivation. In addition to such lands as are merely rendered less productive by surplus water, we have, even on our hard New England farms — on side hills, where springs burst out, or at the foot of declivities, where the land is flat, or in runs, which receive the natural drainage of higher lands — many places which are abso- lutely unflt for cultivation, and worse than useless, because they separate those parts of the farm which can be culti- vated. If, of these wet portions, we make by draining, good, warm, arable land, it is not a mere question of per centage or profit ; it is simply the question whether the land, when drained, is worth more than the cost of drain- age. If it be, how much more satisfactory, and how much more profitable it is, to expend money in thus reclaiming the waste places of our farms, and so uniting the detached fields into a compact, systematic whole, than to follow the natural bent of American minds, and " annex " our neigh- bor's fields by purchasing.
Any number of instances could be given of the in- creased value of lands in England by drainage, but they are of little practical value. The facts, that the Govern- ment has made large loans in aid of the process, that pri-
98 FARM DRAINAGE.
vate drainage companies are executing extensive works all over the kingdom, and that large land-holders are draining at their own cost, are conclusive evidence to any rational mind, that drainage in Great Britain, at least, well repays the cost of the operation.
In another chapter may be found accurate statements of American farmers of their drainage operations, in different States, from which the reader will be able to form a cor- rect opinion, whether draining in this country is likely to prove a profitable operation.
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CHAPTEE V.
VARIOUS METHODS OF DRAINAGE. •
Open Ditches. —Slope of Banks. — Brush Drains. — Ridge and Furrow. — Plug- Draining. — Mole-Draining. — Mole-Plow. — Wedge and Shoulder Drains. — Larch Tubes. — Drains of Fence Rails, and Poles. — Peat Tiles. — Stone Drains Injured by Moles.— Downing's Giraffes. — Illustrations of Various Kinds of Stone Drains. •
OPEN DITCHES.
THE most obvious mode of getting rid of surface-water is, to cut a ditch on the surface to a lower place, arid let it run. So, if the only object were to drain a piece of land merely for a temporary purpose — as, where land is too wet to ditch properly in the first instance, and it is neces- sary to draw off part of the surplus water before systematic operations are commenced — an open ditch is, perhaps, the cheapest method to be adopted.
Again : where land to be drained is part of a large sloping tract, and water runs down, at certain seasons, in large quantities upon the surface, an open catch-water- ditch may be absolutely necessary. This condition of cir- cumstances is very common in mountainous districts, where the rain which falls on the hills flows down, either on the visible surface or on the rock-formation under the soil, and breaks out at the foot, causing swamps, often high up on the hill-sides. Often, too, in clay districts, where sand or loam two or three feet deep rests on tough clay, we see broad sloping tracts, which form our best grass- fields
If we are attempting to drain the lower part of such a
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•
slope, we shall find that the water from the upper part flows down in large quantities upon us, and an open ditch may be most economical as a header, to cut off the down- flowing water; though, in most cases, a covered drain may be as efficient.
At the outlets, too, of our tile or stone drains, when we come down nearly to the level of the stream which re- ceives our drainage-water, we find it convenient, often, and indeed necessary, to use open ditches — perhaps only a foot or two deep — to carry off the water discharged These ditches are of great importance, and should be finished with care, because, if they become obstructed, they cause bafck- water in the drains, and may ruin the whole work.
Open drains are thus essential auxiliaries to the best plans of thorough drainage ; and, whatever opinion may be entertained of their economy, many farmers are so situated that they feel obliged to resort to them for the present, or abandon all idea of draining their wet lands. We will, therefore, give some hints as to the best manner of constructing open drains ; and then suggest, in the form of objections to them, such considerations as shall lead the proprietor who adopts this mode to consider carefully his plan of operations in the outset, with a view to obviate, as much as possible, the manifest embarrassments occa- sioned by them.
As to the location of drains in swamps and peculiarly wet places, directions may be found in another chapter. "We here propose only to treat of the mode of forming open drains, after their location is fixed.
The worst of all drains is an open ditch, of equal width from top to bottom. It cannot stand a single season, in any climate or soil, without being seriously impaired by the frosts or the heavy rains. All open drains should be gjoping ; and \i is ascertained, by experiment, what is the
METHODS OF DR-vINAGE. 101
best, or, as it is sometimes expressed, the natural slope, on different kinds of soil. If earth be tipped from a cart down a bank, and be left exposed to the action of the weather, it will rest, and finally remain, at a regular angle or inclination, varying from 21° to 55° with the horizon, according to the nature of the soil. The natural slope of common earth is found to be about 33° 42' ; and this is the inclination usually adopted by railroad engineers for their embankments.
If the banks of the open ditch are thus sloped, they will have the least possible tendency to wash away, or break down by frost.
Again : where open ditches are adopted in mowing fields, they may, if not very deep, be sloped still lowei than the natural slope, and seeded down to the bottom ; so that no land will be lost, and so that teams may pass across them.
This amounts, in fact, to the old ridge and furrow sys- tem, which was almost universal in England before tiles were used, and is sometimes seen practiced in this country. The land, by that system, is back-furrowed in narrow lands, till it is laid up into beds, sloping from the tops, 01 backs, to the furrows which constitute the drains. This mode of culture is very ancient, and is probably referred to in the language of the Psalmist, in the Scriptures : "Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly, thou settlest the furrows thereof, thou makest it soft with showers."
The objections to open ditches, as compared with under- drains, may be briefly stated thus :
1. They are expensive. The excavation of a sloping drain is much greater than that of an upright drain. An open drain must have a width of one or two feet at the bottom, to receive the earth that always must, to some extent, wash into it. An open drain requires to be cleaned out •>nce a year, to keep it in good order. There is a large
102 FARM DRAINAGE.
quantity of earth from an open drain to be disposed of, either by spreading or hauling away. Thus, a drain of this kind is costly at the outset, and requires constant labor and care to preserve it in working condition.
2. They are not permanent. A properly laid under- drain will last half a century or more, but an open drain, especially if deep, has a constant tendency to fill up. Besides, the action of frost and water and vegetation has a continual operation to obstruct open ditches. Rushes and water-grasses spring up luxuriantly in the wet and slimy bottom, and often, in a single season, retard the flow of water, so that it will stand many inches deep where the fall is slight. The slightest acci- dent, as the treading of cattle, the track of a loaded cart, the burrowing of animals, dams up the water and lessens the effect of the drain. Hence, we so often see meadows which have been drained in this way going back, in a few years, into -wild grass and rushes.
3. They obstruct good husbandry. In the chaptei upon the effects of drainage on the condition of the soil, we suggest, in detail, the hindrances which open ditchee present to the convenient cultivation of the land, andr especially, how they obstruct the farmer in his plowing, his mowing, his raking, and the general laying out of his land for convenient culture.
4. They occupy too much land. If a ditch have an upright bank, it is so soft that cattle will not step within several feet of it in plowing, and thus a strip is lost for culture, or must be broken up by hand. If, indeed, we can get the plow near it, there being no land to rest against, the last furrow cannot be turned from the ditch, and if it be turned into it, must be thrown out by hand. If the banks be sloped to the bottom, and the land be thus laid into beds or ridges, the appearance of the field may, indeed, be improved, but there is still a loss of soil ;
METHODS OF DRAINAGE. 103
for the soil is all removed from the furrow, which, will al- ways produce rushes and water-grass, and carried to the ridge, where it doubles the depth of the natural soil. Thus, instead of a field of uniform condition, as to moist- ure and temperature and fertility, we have strips of wet, cold, and poor soil, alternating with dry, warm, and rich soil, establishing a sort of gridiron system, neither beau- tiful, convenient, nor profitable.
5. The manure washes off and is lost. The three or four feet of water which the clouds annually give us in rain and snow, must either go off by evaporation, or by filtra- tion, or run off upon the surface. Under the title of Rain and Evaporation, it will be seen that not much more than half this quantity goes off by evaporation, leaving a vast quantity to pass off through or upon the soil. If lands are ridged up, the manure and finer portions of the soil are, to a great extent, washed away into the open ditches and lost. Of the water which filters downwards, a large portion enters open ditches near the surface, before the fertilizing elements have been strained out ; whereas, in covered drains of proper depth, the water is filtered through a mass of soil sufficiently deep to take from it the fertilizing substances, and discharge it, comparatively pure, from the field. In a paper by Prof. Way (llth Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc.), on " The Power of Soils to retain Manure," will be found interesting illustrations of the filtering qualities of different kinds of soil.
In addition to the above reasons for preferring covered drains, it has been asserted by one of the most skillful drainers in the world (Mr. Parkes), " that a proper covered drain of the same depth as an open ditch, will drain a greater breadth of land than the ditch can effect. The sides of the ditch," he says, " become dried and plastered, and covered with vegetation; and even while they are
104 FARM DRAINAGE.
free from vegetation, their absorptive power is inferior to the covered drain."
Of the depth, direction, and distance of drains, our views will be found under the appropriate heads. They apply alike to open and covered drains.
BRUSH DKAINS.
Having a farm destitute of stones, before tiles were known among us, we made several experiments with cov- ered drains filled with brush. Some of those drains ope- rated well for eight or ten years ; others caved in and became useless in three or four years, according to the condition of the soil.
In a wet swamp a brush drain endures much longer than in sandy land, which is dry a part of the year, because the brush decays in dry land, but will prove nearly imperisha- ble in land constantly wet. In a peat or muck swamp, we should expect that such drains, if carefully constructed, might last twenty years, but that in a sandy loom they would be quite unreliable for a single year.
Our failure on upland with brush drains, has resulted, not from the decay of the wood, but from the entrance of sand, which obstructed the channel. Moles and field-mice find these drains the very day they are laid, and occupy them as permanent homes ever after.
Those little animals live partly upon earth-worms, which they find by burrowing after them in the ground, and partly upon insects, and vegetation above ground. They have a great deal of business, which requires convenient passages leading from their burrows to the day-light, and drains in which they live will always be found perforated with holes from the surface. In the Spring, or in heavy showers, the water runs in streams into these holes, breaks down the soft soil as it goes, and finally the top begins to fall in, and the channel is choked up, and the work ruined.
METHODS OF DRAINAGE. 105
We have tried many precautions against this kind of accident, but none that was effectual on light land.
The general mode of construction is this : Open the trench to the depth required, and about 12 inches wide at the bottom. Lay into this poles of four or five inches diameter at the butt, leaving an open passage between. Then lay in brush of any size, the coarsest at the bottom, filling the drain to within a foot of the surface, and cover- ing with pine, or he'mlock, or spruce boughs. Upon these lay turf, carefully cut, as close as possible. The brush should be laid but-end up stream, as it obstructs the water less in this way. Fill up with soil a foot above the sur- face, and tread it in as hard as possible. The weight of earth will compress the brush, and the surface will settle very much. We have tried placing boards at the sides, and upon the top of the brush, to prevent the caving in, but with no 'great success. Although our drains thus laid, have generally continued to discharge some water, yet they have, upon upland, been dangerous traps and pit-falls for our horses and cattle, and have cost much labor to fill up the holes, where they have fallen through by washing away below.
In clay, brush drains might be more durable. In the English books, we have descriptions of drains filled with thorn cuttings from hedges and with gorse. When well laid in clay, they are said to last about 15 years. When the thorns decay, the clay will still retain its form, and leave a passage for the water.
A writer in the Cyclopedia sums up the matter as to this kind of drains, thus :
" Although in some districts they are still employed,they can only be looked upon as a clumsy, and superficial plan of doing that which can be executed in a permanent and satisfactory manner, at a very small additional expense, now ihat draining-tiles