The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-04-21
Ilrailiaa "1..t's M.asno %.

/ One reason wins oih' average crops
| are so small, is because they are sc
| many poor and waste spots in orr 9TH
| erwise fertile fiei,ls oa Which the yield
| is nothing. In field of wheat. il
might be easy to pick ont spots on
which the yield would be mt the rate
| of forty or even fifty bushels per acre.
and still the whole field will not yield
one-flalf that. | have just been reading OF
| potatoe Yields, on small patches of gar
| den soil. highly cultivated and fertiliZ-
ed, the largest one ut The rate of 726
| bushels per acre. and still there were
| not. probably. in that vicinity, ten acres
| OF Potatoes together that Welded 200
! bushels per acre These poor spots
may be caused in various ways.
| wish to speak this time particularly
of cat swamps, basins and swales in
cultivated fields VIII il pay To under
drain and improve them? It'll as much
work to pillow and cultivate around these
waste spots as ii would be to go right
through them, if they were drained,
and usually more And sometimes, in
a dry Spring, we may be tempted to
pillow and plant right through them;
then it comes on wet, and we lose our
crop. Thus we do all, or most all, the
work, except the harvesting, and get
no pay for it, A swale may cross one
of our cultivated lots, making it neces-
sary to pillow and cultivate it in two
different pieces. thus wasting a good
deal of time in turning around, beside
. wasting the land in the swale, which, if
underslrained, would probably out-yield
the hills on either side.
Year before last | sold from quarter
Of an acre of land 500 worth of pota-
toes. That is the most money | ever re-
ceived from tina amount OF land since |
have been IA farmer. The average from
the whole field was about $3.50 an acre.
That quarter of an acre was basin, or
small cat swamp, where the water
would accumulate during heavy rain,
r1d be days, and sometimes weeks,
soaking away and evaporating. Time
and again | have plowed and planted
it, and got nothing back, except when
the crop was grass. When in that crop
it would yield well for a year or two,
except a small spot in the center, but it
would soon run TO wild grass 1t would
cost $50 to underdrain it, requiring a
drain sixty feet long, of three-inch tile,
and cut part of the wayfip feet deep.
With land selling at $50 an acre in the
vicinity, it seemed foolislR tospend $50
on enc quarter of sn acre, nevertheless
it was done, although | hated to see
any one coming along when we were
working at it. Ne sowed the field with
wheat, basin-.ana all, one dry fall, and
then determined to save that wheat crop
any way, which would be some SO to-
wards the $40 that the drain would cost.
A good crop of wheat was harvested
in the hole, and Il crop of Hungarian
grass after it the same season. The
next yeaI'Nthe whole lot was planted
with potatoes. Along in june, when
the tops were about six inches high, we
had a great rain, some two or three
inches of water falling in forty-eight
hours. This basin was filled two feet
deep in the middle, Notwithstanding the
drain was running at its full capacity.
In about eighteen hours after it stopped
raining the last drop of water was gone,
and although it was IA close call and the
tops were somewhat injured, the pota-
toes grew from that time on finely and
we got sixty bushels, (sold for 81. 10
busheD from that one fourth of an acre,
where. but for the drain. the crop would
have been n total loss. The next profit
on-this one orop,s after deducting the
cost of all labor and seed, use of land,
marketing, etc, paid for the underdrain
and a trifle MORE. T.. Terry ie Conn
try Gentleman.