Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — Land Drainage. [ARTICLE]

Land Drainage.

Underdrainage as applicable to 90 per cent., dr more, of all the lands of this continent. It is true that occasionally we find an exception, such as a stump lot, on which large crops of wheat may be raised in localities which, for the time being, it is impossible to underdrain; but even with these, in many cases, as soon as the stumps are rotted or removed the underdraining may take place with profit. A still less percentage than 10 constitutes the exception in peculiarly elevated soils, with gravelly subsoils, where, for £ time, underdraining and syjbsoil plowing will not pay for the production of cereal crops. But these cases are rare. 4- strll more rare kind of exceptions are those subsoils which are charged with sulphuret of iron. The admission of the atmosphere causes this sulphuret to change to a sulphate of iron or common copperas; and unless heavily lined, so as to decompose the sulphuret of iron, forming sulphate of lime and oxide of iron, the running of the roots into such a subsoil poisons or diminishes the crop for one or two years; afterward, the sulphuret, being chemically changed and rendered soluble, passes away through the underdrains, and such lands are restored. A few such cases occurred near Burlington, N. the facts in relation to which were long since published by Prof. Mapes. If soil have a money value of five dollars per acre, which will yield thirty or forty bushels of wheat by common cultivation, no farmer could afford to underdrain it, to get even this double crop, if other land of equal quality could be bought for the same sum, the cost of drainage being more than that of the land. But it stagnant surface water is present the farmer must do without, crops, or else use means to carry off' the water. This is true of any soil, irrespective of its money value. Highpriced soil near large cities, robbed ot its fertility, on which crops suffer from the presence of water, cannot be worked profitably unless it is underdrained, properly manipulated and fertilized, it such land is worth SIOO per

acre, and that by these means full-sized can be grown, no farmer can afford to till soil so unfertile as not to pay him lor his labor; and this is truer of tne soil—the poorer it is and the higher the money value of the labor. It is quite usual for writers on agriculture to talk of what the tanner can and cannot afford—that many farmers have not sufficient capital, etc. Now we would urge that agricultuie, properly carried out, requires capital, and that one cannot be a farmer without capital, any more loan he can be a merchant or manufacturer without capital. Suppose Adam Smith, in his work on political economy, shomd state that merchants cannot import goods uni ess the consumers will pay for them before they receive them, because the merchants are poor and mave not capital, would not such an argument be laughed at? Still, do not ninety merchants in one hundred fail every ten years tor want of capital; added, doubtless, to mismanagement when applied to those who have capital. Can a man be a merchant or a banker without capital? and must not his profit bear some ratio to the amount of capital used? We claim, therefore , that writers tin agriculture should present the best methods for produc.ng the largest profit per acre with safety io the capital invested, and let every farmer approximate to this status in proportion to his capital: the more judicious will cultivate such area only as is propor i ned to their espi al, while the speculative, who but ualf cul ivate through the absence of capital, must fail as competitors with their wealthier neighbors. The results of practice are always superior as argument against , a process to any opinion which may be offered in advance of results, and when this practice ,

pervades an immense area with a favorite result we should prefer such class of proof to anyone’s opinion. England has expended many millions of dollars in underdrainage as a Government project, and money was loaned to farmers on the following terms: Ist. That it should be expended in underdraining their farms under the direction of public functionaries. 2d. That the owner of the farm should secure the Government by a mortgage only active on the increased value of the farm beyond the assessed value at the time the underdraining commenced. 3d. That the farmer should pay 3 per cent, interest and 6| per cent, each year until the whole was paid, thus paying annually a part of the principal—the term of the loan extending to twenty years, and that, in case of failure to do this, the Government might foreclose their mortgage, first paying the farmer the original assessed value of his land and next looking to the increased value alone consequent upon the underdrainage to pay themselves. The result has not been merely individual but national, and the increased profit of the farms so underdrained has enabled their owners to pay oil the drainage mortgage without inconvenience, thus leaving themselves, forever after, the recipients of an increased income, while the permanent increase of the value of their farms has been equal to the whole cost of the underdrainage. So profitable did this project prove that chartered companies advertised to loan capital on Government terms for underdraining land, and, as a general remark, it may be added that were it not for the underdrains and subsoil plows in England she could not support her present population. Little underdrainage was done in England prior to 1843. During that year Josiah Parkes gave his evidence before the Agricultural Committee of the House of Lords in relation to the system of underdrainage, which his mind had conceived; and about this time John Reade, an English gardener, made clay pipes to drain hot-beds. His plan was to lay a piece of clay around a mandril, and he used flannel to make it smooth. Mr. Parkes remarked to Earl Spencer: “My Lord, with this pipe I will drain all England.” This new system of underdrainage laid a foundation for England’s greatest improvement in agriculture. It prepared the way for Mr. Blakewell’s improved stock, and the higher class of food that was necessary for their sustenance. Sir Robert Peel caused the Government to appropriate £4,000,000 sterling, to be loaned to farmers for the drainage of their land. As already said, this money was repaid by installments extending over twenty years. The canny Scotch were the first to appreciate the advantages offered to them by tfte Government. In 1856 £4,000,000 more were granted. Several millions were- also invested by companies and private individuals. We are thus minute because there is no subject of greater importance to the interests of this country than thorough land drainage—Pen and Plow. r-