Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1903-01-08
Drainage.


feLc, S, buildings uld live stock
swept away; these grim facts have
aroused the farmer to action.
Heretofore the drainage matter
savored OF stagnaLt water, disap-
pointments ard broken pledges
but this time it should be d fer
ont
The man thlt lost evely spear
of wheat is in favor of drainage.
The man that lost every stalk Of
corn ia in favor of drainage. The
man that lost all of his stock by
high water is in favor of drainage.
Every man that drove four
horse team to an empty wagon
across the Missouri bottoms is in
favor It drainage. Every mother
who saw her child plod through
mud an / hitch along on the bot
tom wire of n fence over running
water on the way TO school is in
favor of drainage. Every one
that wants pure water to drink,
pu Q air to breathe and to avoid
stagnant pools and to escape few; r
epidemics ia in favor of d 'ainage.
The cold weather will now act as
an opiate Oh the lasc'y congested
streams and give the farmer n
chance to get out and take al in
ventory of his losses withou. be-
ling mired down.
Among physicians it is consid-
cred good practice to properly
diagnose case before prescrib-
ing medical treatment or surgical
operations and it would seem
equally good practice to do like
wise in the drainage matter.
Much information should be Oh
tanned, questions raised, discussed
and hammered to a standsti,l and
a vast amount of hard work done
before drainage system can be
properly planned.
Between Dunlap and the mouth
# the Boyer there are mere than
two thousand acres of land in
seed of proper drainage-lar d
that has been of little or no value
10 the owner because of its cor.
dition. A similar state prevails
along the Pigeon, Willow, Sol
slier, and a greater part of the
Missouri bottoms but in more
extensive and aggravated form
i Suppose we refer one view Of
this difficulty to some recognized
authority on drainage for solution
/ Col George % Waring has written
3 voluminous work on the sub.
Iject of Land-drainage and Sewer.
age, based on actual experience in
Europe and in United States; or
page 33S he says:
Grain water should be arrested
by every device within our reach
Rain water belongs to the field on
which it falls, aud it would be an
advantage if it could all be made
to pass down through the first
three or four feet of soil and be
removed from below. Every drop
of it is freighted with fertilizine
matter-carbonic acid, ammonia,
and nitric washed out from
| the air, and in the decent through
the ground these are given for the
use of plants. Instead of being
washed out and carried away in
the floods as is the case with nine.
tenths of the fertilizing matter
that accumulates on the farm.
u "Flowage water contains some
OF the finer or more soluble parts
OF the land over which it has
passed. (Such water may or may
mot be benefcial.)
"Spring or soakage water il
only 80 much dead water, which
has already given up to other sol
all that ours could absorb from it
hence it should be removed az
soon as possible"
A few years ago the farmer in
the valley chuckled over the fac
that he was having the rich soil
of the up-lands washed down up,
on his farm, but that chuckle il
now giving place to apprehension
as across some of the most fertile
fields layers of yellow clay may
be found, and in addition to this
misfortune every stream is loaded