George E. Waring

“ An open ditch cut by the most skillful workman, in the summer, affords the best illustration of this underground mischief. Nothing can look smoother and more even than the bottom, until that uncompromising test of accurate levels, the water, makes its appearance: all on a sudden the whole scene is changed, the eye-accredited level vanishes as if some earthquake had taken place: here, there is a gravelly scour, along which the stream rushes in a thousand little angry-looking ripples ”

“ The rude work of an unthinking farmer, who scratches the surface soil with his plow, plants his seed, and trusts to the chances of a greater or less return, is unmitigated drudgery,—unworthy of an intelligent man; but he who investigates all of the causes of success and failure in farming, and adapts every operation to the requirements of the circumstances under which he works ”

“ If any single fact connected with tile-drainage is established, beyond all possible doubt, it is that in the stiffest clay soils ever cultivated, drains four feet deep will act effectually; the water will find its way to them, more and more freely and completely, as the drying of successive years, and the penetration and decay of the roots of successive crops, modify the character of the land, and they will eventually be practically so porous that,—so far as the ease of drainage is concerned,—no distinction need, in practice, be made between them and the less retentive loams. ”

“ Draining makes the farmer, to a great extent, the master of his vocation. With a sloppy, drenched, cold, uncongenial soil, which is saturated with every rain, and takes days, and even weeks, to become sufficiently dry to work upon, his efforts are constantly baffled by unfavorable weather, at those times when it is most important that his work proceed without interruption. Weeks are lost, at a season when they are all too short for the work to be done. ”

“ In a saturated, a soaking-wet soil, every space between the particles is filled with water to the entire exclusion of the atmosphere, and in such a soil only aquatic plants will grow. In a dry soil, on the other hand, when the earth is contracted into clods and baked, almost as in an oven,—one of the most important conditions for growth being wanting,—nothing can thrive, save those plants which ask of the earth only an anchoring place, and seek their nourishment from the air. ”

“ If no spring, or ooze, keep up the supply, and if no more rain fall, the subsoil may be dried to a considerable depth, cracking and gaping open, in wide fissures, as the clay loses its water of absorption, and shrinks. After the surface soil has become sufficiently dry, the land may be plowed, seeds will germinate, and plants will grow. If there be not too much rain during the season, nor too little, the crop may be a fair one,—if the land be rich, a very good one. It is not impossible, nor even very uncommon, for such soils to produce largely, but they are always precarious. ”

“ The extent to which plants will be affected by drought depends, other things being equal, on the depth to which they send their roots. If these lie near the surface, they will be parched by the heat of the sun. If they strike deeply into the damper subsoil, the sun will have less effect on the source from which they obtain their moisture. Nothing tends so much to deep rooting, as the thorough draining of the soil. If the free water be withdrawn to a considerable distance from the surface, plants,—even without the valuable aid of deep and subsoil plowing,—will send their roots to great depths. ”

“ Those who have not the time for the necessary study and practice to make a plan for draining their land, will find it economical to employ an engineer for the purpose. In this era of railroad building, there is hardly a county in America which has not a practical surveyor, who may easily qualify himself, by a study of the principles and directions herein set forth, to lay out an economical plan for draining any ordinary agricultural land, to stake the lines, and to determine the grade of the drains, and the sizes of tile with which they should be furnished. ”

“ We must throw open door and window, draw away the water in which all is immersed, let in the air, with its all destroying, and, therefore, all re-creating oxygen, and leave the forces of nature's beneficent chemistry free play, deep down in the ground. Then may we hope for the full benefit of the fertilizing matters which our good soil contains, and for the full effect of the manures which we add. ”

“ A single tract, over 20,000 acres in extent, the center of which is not seven miles from the heart of New York City, skirts the Hackensack River, in New Jersey, serving as a barrier to intercourse between the town and the country which lies beyond it, adding miles to the daily travel of the thousands whose business and pleasure require them to cross it, and constituting a nuisance and an eyesore to all who see it, or come near it. ”

“ Filtration may be too sudden, as is well enough shown by our hot sands and gravels; but I apprehend no one will ever fear rendering strong clays too porous and manageable. The object of draining is to impart to such soils the mellowness and dark color of self drained, rich and friable soil. ”

“ In the cultivation of retentive soils, drainage is the key to all improvement, and its advantage is to be measured not simply by the effect which it directly produces in increasing production, but, in still greater degree, by the extent to which it prepares the way for the successful application of improved processes, makes the farmer independent of weather and season, and offers freer scope to intelligence in the direction of his affairs. ”

“ If the soil is saturated with water, the water will, of course, be of an even temperature with the soil in which it lies, but if this be drained off, warm air will enter from above, and give its heat to the soil, while each rain, as it falls, will also carry its heat with it. Furthermore, the surface of the ground is sometimes excessively heated by the summer sun, and the heat thus contained is carried down to the lower soil by the descending water of rains, which thus cool the surface and warm the subsoil, both beneficial. ”

“ A horse-shoe tile, which may be a tolerable secure conduit in a drain of two feet, in one of four feet becomes an almost certain failure. As to the longitudinal fracture—not only is the tile subject to be broken by one of those slips which are so troublesome in deep draining, and to which the lightly-filled material, even when the drain is completed, offers an imperfect resistance, but the constant pressure together of the sides, even when it does not produce a fracture of the soil, catches hold of the feet of the tile, and breaks it through the crown. ”

“ It has been argued that surface water will be more readily removed by drains having porous filling. Even if this were true to any important degree,—which it is not,—it would be an argument against the plan, for the remedy would be worse than the disease. If the water flow from the surface down into the drain, it will not fail to carry dirt with it, and instead of the clear water, which alone should rise into the tiles from below, we should have a trickling flow from above, muddy with wasted manure and silty earth. ”

“ The ground must be hurriedly, and imperfectly prepared, and the seed is put in too late, often to rot in the over-soaked soil, requiring the field to be planted again at a time which makes it extremely doubtful whether the crop will ripen before the frost destroys it.
The necessary summer cultivation, between the rows, has to be done as the weather permits; and much more of it is required because of the baking of the ground. The whole life of the farmer, in fact, becomes a constant struggle with nature, and he fights always at a disadvantage. ”

“ It is not within the scope of the best laid drains to control storm or sunshine,—but it is within their power to remove the water of the storm, rapidly and sufficiently, and to allow the heat of the sunshine to penetrate the soil and do its hidden work. No human improvement can change any of the so-called "phenomena" of nature, or prevent the action of the least of her laws; but their effects upon the soil and its crops may be greatly modified, and that which, under certain circumstances, would have caused inconvenience or loss, may, by a change of circumstances, be made positively beneficial. ”

“ The principle which justifies the use of pipe sewers is precisely that which has been described in recommending small tiles for agricultural drainage,—to wit: that the rapidity of a flow of water, and its power to remove obstacles, is in proportion to its depth as compared with its width. ”

“ It is well known among those who attend the meetings of the Farmers' Club of the American Institute, in New York, that the farm of Professor Mapes, near Newark, N.J., which maintains its wonderful fertility, year after year, without reference to wet or dry weather, has been rendered almost absolutely indifferent to the severest drought, by a course of cultivation which has been rendered possible only by under-draining. The lawns of the Central Park, which are a marvel of freshness, when the lands about the Park are burned brown, owe their vigor mainly to the complete drainage of the soil. ”

“ The Hackensack meadows are only a conspicuous example of what exists over a great extent of our whole seaboard;—virgin lands, replete with every element of fertility, capable of producing enough food for the support of millions of human beings, better located, for residence and for convenience to markets, than the prairies of the Western States,—all allowed to remain worse than useless; while the poorer uplands near them are, in many places, teeming with a population whose lives are endangered, and whose comfort is sadly interfered with by the insects and the miasma which the marsh produces. ”

“ But, while cheapness is to be shunned, economy is to be sought in every item of the work of draining, and should be studied, by proprietor and engineer, from the first examination of the land, to the throwing of the last shovelful of earth on to the filling of the ditch. There are few operations connected with the cultivation of the soil in which so much may be imperceptibly lost through neglect, and carelessness about little details, as in tile-draining. ”

“ The idea was, that this tile, standing on narrow feet, and pressed by the weight of the refilled soil, sank into the floor of the drain; whereas, in fact, the floor of the drain rose into the tile. Any one at all conversant with collieries is aware that when a strait work (which is a small subterranean tunnel six feet high and four feet wide or thereabouts) is driven in coal, the rising of the floor is a more usual and far more inconvenient occurrence than the falling of the roof: the weight of the two sides squeezes up the floor. ”