The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1906-10-11

7 good one. This road-under which
The tiles run-is an ordinary dirt road
that used to be almost impossible,
but now 1t is a good road, even in the
spring, where it runs between my two
i0-acre tracts.
Il have put from $72 to SIS under
every acre of the farm that 1 have
drained thus far, and my net earnings
last year off of the 65 acres-15 being
n woods-was 1900. This is net
| paid my tenant and his helper the
usual wages for farm help and had
the ordinary expenses of a farm to
1educt from the gross. I believe that
the new system of drainage and at.
mospheric irrigation pays.
FINDING that my tiles ran water as
ordinary drains when there was need
Of the water having an outlet, and
that they took in air in dry, hot
weather, I began to figure on the
proposition of mud and soil. Why not
nave five, six, seven, eight or nine
feet OF oxidized clay instead of a mere
skim-why not make my farm a great
sponge to absorb all the water that
might fall on it, and to suck up this
water from great depths by capillary
attraction when it was needed?
L put in a new drain with the air
vent, at a minimum depth of five feet.
In some places it was nine feet deep.
The result was satisfactory. 1 took
up all of the old shallow drains and
have put down larger ones at the low
er level. l now have these bitches
with laterals every 60 feet over most
bf my farm, and the remainder of the
work will be completed next year.
"Of course, it takes some time to
oxidize the clay all the way down, but
it is done much quicker than one
would suppose. The rain penetrates
the almost impervious soil and brings
the air and fertility with it, and,
though my drains have been down but
two, three and four years, l believe
that I have a soil o down to those
drains. I have absolutely no doubt
that If a cloudburst would dump a
two-inch rain on my entire farm that
hardly a gill Of it would flow off.
It would sink into my porns sponge
and fill it full, and If there would be
a surplus, of course, it would flow off
through the four, six, eight and
twelve-inch drains, which are every GO
feet apart. I would have bottled up
this great deposit Of water to draw on
whenever my crops need it. In the
summer, when everything is hot and
dry, the crops get their regular sup
ply Of moisture by the air entering
into the drains and causing precipi-
tation Of the moisture in them and
releasing it, and air to be drawn up
through the soil by capillary attrac-
tomas q sponge will draw up water
from a lower level. This keeps the
ground porous and in good condition to
the depth of the tile"
Mr.. Rocker says that his drains do
not begin to flow in the spring until
the shallow ones of his neighbors have
gone dry, and that they then flow
away into the summer, and when they
do stop the air begins to flow into
the drains, and the irrigation of the
land through the heated dry season
begins.
Notwithstanding the heavy cost of
such a system of drainage, Mr.. Rock
or thinks it very profitable, and be.
lieves that even the most misused
soils in the state can be reclaimed
and made productive. The drainage
and atmospheric irrigation will not Of
themselves do it, but fertilizer, says
Rocker, completes the soil-restoring
trinity. Rocker feeds all of his crops,
and hauls the manure out into the
field every day-winter and summer.
He boards from 20 to so city horses
and mules through the winter on his
farm, not only for the seven dollars
a month a head that he gets for
keeping them, but for the soil en-
riching manure which he thus gets
to spread on his soil. He also feeds
a large number Of hogs, and thus
markets a great deal of his corn on the
hoof.