The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-06-10
TlLE-DRAINlNG.
The Remarkable Results Accomplished
by Practical Drainage.

| The Remarkable Results Accomplished
by Practical Drainage.
Special care of manure, improved
implements, etc, is all right, but with
the ground saturated with water, and no
chance for it to escape without evapor-
ating, we can not raise crops success
fully. Evaporation not only makes the
ground colder, but is injurious. Ele-
ments are carried away that should be
retained for fertiliZing the soil. The
ground is left in a solid condition, and
when the dry weather comes the moist
ure escapes, leaving the ground baked
and hard. Well-drained land is porous,
and will hold much more water than
ground that is undrained; but will re-
tain only what is necessary for the
growing crop. When the rains fall
they are readily absorbed by the soil,
leaving the warmth and fertiliZing ele-
ments behind. | suppose it is well
known that we stir and loosen the soil
in dry, hot weather SO that it will re-
tain the vapOrs that rise from the earth,
also allowing the air to pass through,
leaving the moisture, ammonia, etc, i'll
the loose soil.
commenced tiling and digging open
drains for outlets more than fifteen
years ago (my land has only been
cleared from ten to fifteen years), and
have kept it up ever since, until now l
have more than two thousand one
hundred rods. Some open drains are
necessary. but | have as few rs pos
sible: they keep filling up, take a good
deal of ground, are in the way, and are
not as effectual as a tile drain. If
ditch has just been dug, and there is
water in the ground, the water will
readily flow into the ditch for a num-
Der of days. An old open ditch will
not do this; the pores get stopped up.
A tile drain is always like fresh dug
ditch. have found by experience that
fewer and larger outlets are better
than those that are small and more
numerous. | have two-inch tile that
have been in the ground fifteen years,
where there is no more than One-fifth
of an inch fall to the rod, and have
never had a drain fill up yet. Some
times the mouth gets stopped up by
dirt covering over it, but it always runs
when the dirt is removed. The mouths
of large drains do not fill up as easily
as those of smaller ones.
l once planted fourteen-acre field
in corn, and got about two hundred
bushels of soft corn and nubbins, and
not more than one-quarter of a crop of
stalks. | told my wife that l would
never plant that field in corn again
until it was tiled; and did not. A few
years afterward having put in nearly
three hundred rods of tile in the same
field, l again planted it with corn. The
season was very unfavorable for corn,
but l got more than one hundred and
ten bushels of sound ears per acre, and
one of the finest crops of stalks l ever
raised. have had several similar ex-
periences.
A gentleman living near me had a
ten-acre sOd-field that had never been
plowed. For more than thirty years it
had been in pasture; was mostly rich,
clay loan. l was surprised in the fall
of 1882 to see him commence breaking
the field without draining, as he was a
very shrewd man, and the field had
several wet says running through it
and had no natural drainage. l was
good deal interested in the matter, as
the field, with good drainage, would
have yielded a very heavy crop. After
plowing the higher places, rain came
on and the field was abandoned
until spring. After mudding and mus
sing around all the spring. the field was
planted to corn the first week in June.
1t cost a good deal more to tend that
corn field than it would an ordinary
field, and the result was total failure. |
There was not five dollars worth of
corn and stalks together on the field. |
The season was unusually wet, but |, |
on tiled ground, raised a pretty fair |
crop. That same fall the owner of that |
field had Il town drain laid out and dug
across the field nearly rod wide and !
four or five feet deep. Some of it cost |
him four dollars per rod. The next |
spring as soon as the frost was out, a |
gang of men was set to thing that field. |
| became more interested than ever, |
for | saw it was being done fright up |
to the handle" As | occasionally rode |
by. would try to estimate the num- |
Der of rods and what it would probably |
cost. made up nv mind, after con-
siderable study, that if the thing had |
been done the previous spring, the |
crop would have paid the whole cost of
tiling.
That field was prepared and planted !
to corn almost before any of us had |
thought of planting. and it kept ahead |
all the season through, and was the |
best field of corn in the whole county |
q guess). Last year it was planted to
corn and pumpkins, and two rousing |
crops were harvested from the field. |
Was not that field a sermon, though, |
for miles around?-M. z. Cole, in
Country Gentleman.
Plant apDle trees in eyery Out-Ofs