Drainage tile

“ No scientific drainer uses any but pipes in England, and the million of acres well drained with them, is pretty good evidence of their sufficiency. In this country, horse-shoe tiles have been much used in Western New York, and have been found to answer a good purpose; and so it may be said of the sole-pipes. Indeed, it is believed that no instance is to be found on record in America of the failure of tile drains, from the inability of the water to gain admission at the joints. ”

“ The better the fall the quicker the drain will act and the more permanent it will be, as it will tend to clean itself and not fill up with silt. It is important that the outlet be entirely free, and it should be protected with stones or mason work. The roots of some trees, particularly of willows and elms, are attracted by tile drains, and often fill up the pipes. When the drain goes near such trees, therefore, it is well to cement the joints. In general practice, however, the joints should not be cemented, because a large part of the drainage water enters at those places. ”

“ Drainage with tiles is a new branch of husbandry in America. The cost of tiles is now a great obstacle in prosecuting much work of this kind which land-owners desire to accomplish. The cost of tiles, and so the cost of drainage, depends very much—it may be said, chiefly—upon the perfection of the machinery for tile-making; and here, as almost everywhere else, agriculture and the [206] mechanic arts go hand in hand. Labor is much dearer in America than in Europe, and there is, therefore, more occasion here than there, for applying mechanical power to agriculture. ”

“ It is much easier, however, to lay tile-drains so that [143] they will not be of use half of fifty years, than to make them permanent in their effect. Tile-drainage, it cannot be too much enforced, is an operation requiring great care and considerable skill—altogether more care and skill than our common laborers, or even most of our farmers, are accustomed to exercise in their farm operations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What constitutes a sufficient drain is something very much less than what is generally supposed. In ordinary agricultural drainage, where the lines of tiles are forty feet apart, a well-laid tile an inch and a quarter in diameter is sufficient for a length of one thousand feet—that is, it is sufficient to remove the water of filtration from an acre of land. If laid with only an inclination of six inches in one hundred feet, its delivery will be so rapid as to amount to more than a heavy continuous rain-fall upon this area. ”

“ For a main drain from the cellar, four or six-inch tiles are abundantly sufficient, and where they can be reasonably obtained, much cheaper than stone. The expense of excavation, of hauling stone, and of laying them, will make the expense of a stone drain far exceed that of a tile drain, with tiles at fair prices. The tiles, if well secured at the inlet and outlet of the drain, will entirely exclude rats and mice, which always infest stone drains to cellars. Care must be taken, if the water is conducted on the surface of the cellar into the drain, that nothing but pure water be admitted. ”

“ Pick-axes may be light or heavy, according to the nature of the soil. A chisel at one end, and point at the other, is found best in most cases.
A Drain-gauge is usually mentioned in a list of draining tools. It is used when ditches are designed for stone or other material than tiles, and where the width is important. In tile-draining the width is entirely immaterial. If opened by the rod, it is only important that they be of proper depth and inclination, with the bottom wide enough for the tile. ”

“ After the entire drainage of the field is finished, the earth above these sloping sides, and that back of the coping, should be neatly sloped, and protected by sods. An iron grating, fine enough to prevent the entrance of vermin, placed in front of the tile, at a little distance from them,—and secured by a flat stone set on edge and hollowed out, so as merely to allow the water to flow freely from the drains,—the stone being cemented in its place so as to allow no water to pass under it,—will give a substantial and permanent finish to the structure. ”

“ Neither hard-burnt bricks nor hard-burnt tiles will crumble by mere exposure to the Winter weather above ground, though soft bricks or tiles will scarcely endure a single hard frost. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the importance of using hard-burnt tiles only, as the failure of a single tile may work extensive mischief. Writers seem to assume, that the freezing of the ground about the drains will displace the tiles, and so destroy their continuity, and this may be so; though we find no evidence, perhaps, that at three or four feet, there is any disturbance of the soil by freezing. ”

“ The whole area of land which naturally discharges toward the drain is not always taken into account. It is generally thought that land lying at some distance from the drain, though sloping toward it, does not affect the capacity required for the drain, whereas in times of heavy rains, when drains are taxed to their utmost, water flows from those more distant parts over the surface to the ground acted upon by the tile drain. We must then provide for the drainage not only of land contiguous to the drains but for an additional amount of water coming from adjoining slopes. ”

“ The guilty trees have, in every instance, been young and free growing; I have never convicted an adult.
Mangold-wurzel, it is said by several writers, will sometimes grow down into tile drains, even to the depth of four feet, and entirely obstruct them; but those are cases of [317] very rare occurrence. In thousands of instances, mangolds have been cultivated on drained land, even where tiles were but 21⁄2 feet deep, without causing any obstruction of the drains. ”

“ Tile-drainage will endure so long as the tiles last, if the work be properly done.
There is no reason why a tile should not last in the ground as long as a brick will last. Bricks will fall to pieces in the ground in a very short time if not hard-burnt, while hard-burnt bricks of good clay will last as long as granite. ”

“ It is customary in many cities to require that the drainage course under the concrete shall have a depth of twelve or more inches. This deep-drainage is designed to prevent the heaving of the sidewalk by freezing. Experience seems to prove that this is not necessary, particularly if tile drains are provided to carry off the water from the drainage course, as specified. Comparatively dry material, even earth, does not heave with freezing ”

“ A handbook for farmers on the principles and practice of draining, by Manly Miles, giving the results of his extended experience in laying tile drains. The directions for the laying out and the construction of tile drains will enable the farmer to avoid the errors of imperfect construction, and the disappointment that must necessarily follow. This manual for practical farmers will also be found convenient for references in regard to many questions that may arise in crop growing, aside from the special subjects of drainage of which it treats. ”

“ Cases of such drainage can be numbered by the score. How many miles of drain tile have been taken up and relaid during the past year because of some mistake in plan, size of tile, or execution of the work? Much might be said of drainage mistakes in a general way, but it is proposed in this paper to treat the subject in a specific and practical manner. It may be encouraging to remember that it is only by comparing success with mistakes that we make progress in any valuable science or art. Great skill and success rest upon a foundation of corrected mistakes. ”

“ Our land can not be properly drained without them. They must be of ample depth and width, and well made in every respect. No problem connected with the drainage interests of our State should, at present, receive more careful attention than this. Nature, has, in most cases, marked out the line for work, and says, "let man enlarge and complete for his undivided use according to his strength and skill." When such work is done, the demand for tile to supplement the drainage thus made possible will be unprecedented. ”

“ The expense of tile-drainage may vary from about £2:10s. per acre on loose soils to £10 an acre on the most tenacious soils, the rate of wages and the cost of the pipes, the depth of the trenches and the ease with which they can be dug, all influencing the cost of the process.
Drainage is not a modern discovery. The Romans were careful to keep their arable lands dry by means of open trenches or covered drains filled with stones or twigs. It is at least several centuries since covered channels of various kinds were used by British husbandmen for drying their land. ”

“ Any one who has observed the discharge of water from flat-bottomed and round tiles, will be satisfied that the quantity of water which is sufficient to run in a rapid stream of a half or quarter inch diameter from a round tile, will lazily creep along the flat bottom of a sole tile, with hardly force sufficient to turn aside a grain of sand, or to bring back to light an enterprising cricket that may have entered on an exploration. ”

“ Fig. 11 - STONE AND TILE BASIN FOR SPRING WITH DRAIN. 5. Where a ledge of shelving rock, of considerable size, occurs on land to be drained, it is best to make some provision for collecting, at its base, the water flowing over its surface, and taking it at once into the drains, so that it may not make the land near it unduly wet. To effect this, a ditch should be dug along the base of the rock, and quite down to it, considerably deeper than the level of the proposed drainage ”

“ The best statistics obtainable show that tile-drainage has doubled since 1878, and will undoubtedly continue to increase very rapidly, because it has been found to prove advantageous to all lands, and I am informed that there is one farmer in this State who has, during the year 1884, laid upward of eleven miles of tile-drains upon his farms. ”

“ The tiles should lie far enough below the deepest path of the subsoil plow, not to be at all disturbed by its pressure in passing over the [170] drains. It is by no means improbable that fields that have already been drained in this country, may be, in the lifetime of their present occupants, plowed and subsoiled by means of steam-power, and stirred to as great a depth as shall be found at all desirable. But, in the present mode of using the subsoil plow on land free from stones, a depth less than three and a half or four feet would hardly be safe for the depth of tile-drains. ”

“ Mere surface drainage may be cheaply effected by the plow, and should always be done in level lands, especially where the subsoil is compact and tenacious. The expense of thorough drainage is so great, and the success of our orchards, as commonly planted, even on ill-prepared ground, is so generally good, that we can not expect the majority of farmers to use drain tile at present. ”

“ Brickwork, masonry, concrete, pipes, or other rigid drains, may not be suitable for ground likely to unequally subside, as they will probably crack or leak, and loose-jointed pipes or over-lapping tile drains may be required. In treacherous clay soils surface longitudinal and transverse drains will most probably be insufficient, and deep draining of the mass be necessary, also 74the ground upon which earth is deposited will require to be drained and a layer of rubble stone placed upon it, a cutting or embankment being divided into small drainage areas by deep open dry stone trenches. ”

“ This plan is not without objections, and, as a rule, it is never well to lay any tiles at the lower end of a drain until all above it is finished; but when a considerable outlet must be secured through soft land, which is inclined to cave in, and to get soft at the bottom, it will save labor to secure the tile in place before much water reaches it, even though it require a daily flushing to keep it clean. ”

“ No inconvenience can result from the fact that, on rare occasions, the drain is unable, for a short time, to discharge all the water that reaches it, and if collars are used, or if the clay be well packed about the pipes, there need be no fear of the tile being displaced by the pressure. An idea of the drying capacity of a 1-1/4-inch tile may be gained from observing its wetting capacity, by connecting a pipe of this size with [pg 082] a sufficient body of water, at its surface, and discharging, over a level dry field, all the water which it will carry. ”

“ Providence has so liberally supplied the greater part of New England with stones, that it seems to most inexperienced persons to be a work of supererogation, almost, to manufacture tiles or any other draining material for our farms.
We would by no means discourage the use of stones, where tiles cannot be used with greater economy. Stone drains are, doubtless, as efficient as any, so long as the water-way can be kept open. The material is often close at hand, lying on the field and to be removed as a nuisance, if not used in drainage. ”

“ On the contrary, they are cheap and easily made, and if made in a substantial way and according to the rules of common sense a good under drain will last for ages. Use the best tools and materials you can get; employ them as well as you know how, and wait results with a clear conscience. Slim fagots of wood bound together and laid lengthwise at the bottom of a carefully graded drain ditch will answer fairly well if stone or drain tile cannot be had, and will be of infinite benefit to a dirt road laid on springy soils. ”