The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-08
WHAT I KNOW OF FARMING.-x.
BY HORACE GREELEY.
DRAISING-NYow

30 miles from our City Hall, and a little
eastward of the hamlet known as Chap
paqua, called into existence by sta
/ ton on the Harlem railroad. 1t en-
braces the south-easterly half of the
marsh which the railroad here traveFses
from south to north-my part measur-
ing some fifteen acres, with five acres
more of slightly elevated dry land be-
| tween it and the foot of the rather rug
ged hill which rises thence on the east
ana on the south, and of which now
own some fifty acres lying wholly east
ward of my low land, and in good part
covered with forest. Of this, bought
more than half in 1853. and the residue
in bits from time to time as / could at
ford it. The average cost was between
$130 and $40 per acre: one small and
poor old cottage being the only build
ing found on the tract, which consist
ed of the ragged edges of two adjacent
farms between the western portions of
which mine in now interposed, while
they still adjoin each other beyond the
north and south road half mile from
the railroad on which their buildings
are located and which forms my eastern
boundary. Ny stony, gravelly upland
mainly slopes to the west but two acres
of my east line incline toward the road
which bounds me in that direction,
while two more on my southeast cor
ner deccnd to o little brook which, en-
tering at that corner, keeps irregularly
near my south line, until it energies,
swelled by smaller runnel that enters
nv lowland from the north and trav-
erses it to meet and pass off with the
larger brooklet aforesaid. l have done
some draining, to no great purpose, on
the more level portions of my upland !;
4 4
efforts in this line, and shall here ex-
plain them for the encouragement and
possible guidance of novices in draining.
Let me speak first of
My DiffcultieS.-This marsh or bog
consisted, when 1 first grappled with
it, of some thirty acres, whereof / then
owned less than third. To drain it to
advantage, one person should own it all
or the different owners should cooper
ate but l hal to go it alone, withsno
other aid than freely accorded privi-
lege of Strengthening as well as deepen
ing the brook which wound its way
through the dryer meadow just below
me, forming here the boundary of two
adjacent farms. / spent 500 on this
job, which is still imperfect; but the
first decided fall i'll the stream occurs
nearly n mile below me and you tire
which benefits several others as much as
yourself. Ny drainage will never be
perfect till this brook, with that far lar
ger one in which it is merged sixty
rods below me, shall have been sunk
three or four feet at a further expense of
at least $500.
This bog or swamp, when 1 first
bought into it, was mainly dedicated to
the uses of frogs, muskrats and snap
ping-turtles. a few small water elms
and soft naples grew upon it, with
swamp alder partly fringing the west
ern base of the hill east of it, where
the rocks which had, through thousands
of years, rolled from the hill, thickly
covered the surface, with springs bub-
bling up around and among them. De-
caying stumps and imbedded fragments
of trees argued that timber formerly
covered this marsh as well as the encir-
cling hills. A tall, dense growth of
blackberry briars, thoroughwort, and
all manner of swamp weeds and grass
es, covered the center of the swamp
each summer; but my original portion
of it, being too wet for these, was main
ly addicted to hassocks OF tussocks of
wiry, worthless grass: their matted
roots rising i'll hard punches few inch
es above the soft, bare, encircling mud.
The bog ranged in depth from a few
inches to five or six feet, and was COM
posed of black, peaty, vegetable mold,
diversified by occasional streaks of clay
or sand, all resting en a hard, coarse
gravel, out of which two or three
springs dubbed up, in addition to the
half a dozen which poured in from the
east, and tiny rivulet which Except in
a very dry, hot time) added the tribute
of three or four more which sprung
from the base of higher shelf of the
hill near the middle of what is now my
farm. Add to these that the brook that
brawled and foamed down my hillside
near my south line as aforesaid, had
brought along an immensely of pebbles
and gravel of which it had mainly form
ed my five acres of dryer Rowland, had
thus built up petty swale, whereon it
had the bad habit of filling up one
channel, and then cutting another, more
devious and eccentric, if possible, than
any of its predecessors-and you have
some idea OF the obstacles encounter
ed and resolved to overcome. One of
my first substantial improvements was
the cutting of n straight channel for this
current and, by walling it with large
stones, compelling the brook to respect
necessary limitations. It was not my
fault that some of those stones were
brook rather than thoroughly constrain
it: hence some of the stones, under
mined by strong currents, were pitch
ed forward into the brook by high
spring freshets, so as to require reset
ting more carefully. This was a mis-
take, but not one of
My BlttnderS.-These, the natural re-
suit of ineXperience and haste, were
very grave. Not only had 1 had no
real experience in draining when ! be-
gan, but could hire no foreman who
knew much more of it than 1. did. l
ought to have begun by securing an am
pie and sure fall where the water left
my land, and next cut down the brook
let or open ditch into which / intended
to drain the lowest practicable point
so low, at least, that no drain running
into it would ever be troubled with
back water. Nothing can be more USE
less than a drain in which water stag
nates, choking it with mud. Then 1
should have bought hundreds of hem
lock or other cheap boards, slit them to
a width of four or five inches, and, hay
ing opened the needed drains, laid these
in the bottom and the tile thereupon, ia
king care to break joint by covering the
meeting ends of two boards with the
middle of a tile. Laying tile in the
to prevent their sinking, is simply
throwing away labor and money. /
cannot wonder that tile draining seems
to many humbug, seeing that SO many
tile are laid so that they can never do
any good.
Having, by successive purchases, be-
come owner of fully half of this swamp,
and by repeated plumbers discovered
that making stone drains in bog, while
il is capital method of getting rid of
the stone, is no way at ali to make
drains, closed my series of expert
ments two years since by carefully re-
laying my generally useless tile on
good strips of board, sinking them just
as deep as could persuade the water
to run off freely, and, instead of allow
ing them to discharge into brooklet or
open ditch, connecting each with a COW
cred main of four to six-inch tile; these
mains discharging into the running
brook which drains all my farm and
two or three of those above IL Just
where it runs swiftly off from my land.
If a thaW or heavy rain sweils the
brook las it sometimes wiID SO that it
rises above my outlet aforesaid, the
strong current formed by the concen-
tration of the clear contents of so many
drains will not allow the muddy water
of the brook to back into it SO many as