Drainage

“ Wells and springs are fed by ground water, which is merely natural drainage. Drainage water usually moves with the slope of the land. It always dissolves part of the mineral, vegetable, and animal matter of the ground over or through which it moves. In this way impurities are carried into the ground water and may reach distant wells or springs.
The great safeguards are clean ground and wide separation of the well from probable channels of impure drainage water. It is not [ 8 ] enough that a well or spring is 50 or 150 feet from a source of filth or that it is on higher ground. ”

“ Men unaccustomed to minute investigation, are slow to appreciate the great effects produced by apparently small causes; and it may seem to many, that the operations of drainage for agriculture, are too insignificant in their details, perceptibly to affect the flow of mill-streams and rivers. A moment's thought will convince the most skeptical, that the thorough-drainage of the wet lands, even of a New England township, must produce sensible effects upon the streams which convey its surplus water toward the sea. ”

“ If water poured on to tiles in a stream, it would be likely to carry into these openings enough earthy matter to fill them; but the whole theory of thorough-drainage rests upon the idea of slow percolation—of the passage of water in the form of fine dew, as it were—through the motionless particles which compose the soil; and, if drains are properly laid, there can be no motion of particles of earth, either into or towards the tiles. The water should soak through the ground precisely as it does through a wet cloth. ”

“ In proportion to the completeness and efficiency of the means for the removal of surplus water from the soil:—in proportion, that is, to the degree in which the improved tile drainage described in these pages is adopted,—will be the completeness of the removal of the causes of disease. So far as the drying of malarious lands is concerned, it is only necessary to construct drains in precisely the same manner as for agricultural improvement. ”

“ If we have only to take care of the water that falls on our own field, from the clouds, that is quite a different matter from draining the whole adjoining region, and requires a different mode of operation. If your field is in the middle, or at the foot, of an undrained slope, from which the water runs on the surface over your land, or soaks through it toward some stream or swamp below, provision must be made not only for drainage of your own field, but also for partial drainage of your neighbor's above, or at least for defence against his surplus of water. ”

“ Shedd and Edson, of Boston, have superintended some drainage works in Milton, Mass., where, after obtaining permission to drain through the land of an adjacent owner, not interested in the operation, they could obtain but three inches fall in one hundred feet, or a half inch to the rod, for three quarters of a mile, and this only by blasting the ledges at the outlet. This fall, however, proves sufficient for perfect drainage, and by their skill, a very unhealthful swamp has been rendered fit for gardens and building-lots. ”

“ It is easily demonstrable, too, that drains at right angles with the mains, and so parallel with each other, are the shortest possible drains in land that needs uniform drainage. They take each a more uniform share of the water, and serve a greater breadth of soil than when laid at acute angles. ”

“ If steam enters a soil-pipe, it heats the water in the traps, injures joints on account of the extreme changes of temperature induced, and hastens corrosion of the pipes.
Fig. 25 shows a system of house-drainage for a city house planned in accordance with the above rules.
Fig. 26.—Field’s flush-tank.
In country houses, where there are no sewers, the best method of disposing of the house-slops is subsoil drainage. The house system may be the same as that already explained for city houses. The fluids are conducted by a pipe with tight joints to a flush-tank (Fig. 26) near the house. ”

“ He states, that there are large tracts of land having clay soil, with sand or gravel beneath the clay, which yet need drainage, and suggests that this may be effected by merely boring frequent holes, and filling them with pebbles, without ditches. In all such soils, if the mode suggested prove insufficient, large wells of proper depth, stoned up, or otherwise protected, might obviously serve as cheap and convenient outlets for a regular system of pipe or stone drains. ”

“ Open drains are thus essential auxiliaries to the best plans of thorough drainage; and, whatever opinion may be entertained of their economy, many farmers are so situated that they feel obliged to resort to them for the present, or abandon all idea of draining their wet lands. We will, therefore, give some hints as to the best manner of constructing open drains ”

“ The drainage of the ground is most important in order that water cannot reach the seat of an embankment. Many systems are referred to in Chapter IV., and others are herein named. A complete system of drains may be necessary, but much depends upon the character and sound condition of the earth and whether the slopes and formation are protected. ”

“ In order to secure the full effect of thorough drainage in clays, it is necessary that there should be not only well-laid conduits for the water which reaches them, but also subsidiary passages opened through the substance of the close subsoil, by means of atmospheric heat, and the contraction which ensues from it. ”

“ Experience has proven, however, that four inches of drainage material is sufficient if the water is drained out of it, while if allowed to stand saturated with water, deeper drainage will give little if any better results. Where the soil is sandy or the natural drainage is otherwise good, no drainage course is necessary. ”

“ So far as the drainage of the land, in detail, is concerned, it is only necessary to say that it may be accomplished, as in the case of any other level land which, from the slight fall that can be allowed the drains, requires close attention and great care in the adjustment of the grades. ”

“ While we would not lay down an arbitrary arrangement for any farm, except upon a particular examination, and while we would by no means advocate what has been called the gridiron system—of drains everywhere at equal depths and distances—yet some system is absolutely essential, in any operation that approaches to thorough drainage. ”

“ Rivers and brooks, diverted from their ancient course, were made to flow through new water-tight channels, and such is the amount of drainage required in that aquiferous region that engines of two thousand horse-power have to raise from a depth of 360 feet a daily quantity of 800,000 cubic feet of water. ”

“ A system of drainage has also been constructed, which was fully as much of a necessity as the supply of water, but which, as usual, proves to be insufficient in capacity to perform the necessary work,—at least it but partially meets the requirements for which it was designed. ”

“ If a soil were perfectly saturated with water, that is, held as much water in suspension as possible to hold without draining off, and drains were laid at a proper depth from the surface, and in sufficient number to take off all surplus water, then the entire rain-fall upon the surface would be water of drainage—presuming, of course, the land to be level, and the air at saturation, so as to prevent evaporation. ”

“ A careful consideration of the experience of the past twenty years, and of the arguments of writers on drainage, leads to the belief that there are few soils, which need draining at all, on which it will be safe to place 4-foot drains at much wider intervals than 40 feet. ”

“ We make frequent reference to English writers and to English opinions upon our subject, because drainage is understood and practiced better in England than anywhere else in the world, and because by personal inspection of drainage-works there, and personal acquaintance and correspondence with some of the most successful drainers in that country, we feel some confidence of ability to apply English principles to American soil and climate. ”

“ Remembering that on the map, the line of steepest descent is exactly perpendicular to the contour lines of the land, it will be profitable to study carefully the system of drains first laid out, erasing and making alterations wherever it is found possible to simplify the arrangement.
Strictly speaking, all angles are, to a certain extent, wasteful, because, if two parallel drains will suffice to drain the land between them, no better drainage will be effected by a third drain running across that land. ”

“ At the same time, all admit that, in many cases, a greater depth than four feet is required by true economy. It may seem, at first, that a controversy, as to one additional foot in a system of drainage, depends upon a very small point ”

“ The conditions of subterranean drainage that favour the formation of springs at the surface, whether cold or thermal, would no doubt often determine the direction of surface drainage in a newly-formed land. ”

“ A consideration, too, of the varying inclinations of surface, of which instances will frequently occur in the same field, necessitates a departure from uniformity, not in direction only, but in intervals between drains. Take, for instance, the ordinary case of a field, in which a comparatively flat space will intervene between quickly rising ground and the outfall ditch. It is clear that the soak of the hill will pervade the soil of the lower ground, let the system of drainage adopted be what it may ”

“ We cannot, however, against the overwhelming weight of authority, and against the reasons for deeper drainage, which, to us, seem so satisfactory, conclude, that even three feet is, in general, deep enough for under-drains. Three-foot drains will produce striking results on almost any wet lands, but four-foot drains will be more secure and durable, will give wider feeding-grounds to the roots, better filter the percolating water, warm and dry the land earlier in Spring, furnish a larger reservoir for heavy rains, and, indeed, more effectually perform every office of drains. ”

“ They should not be laid near willow, elm, and other trees of like character, or else the fibrous roots will penetrate and fill the channel. If one has a large problem of drainage to solve, he should carefully read a work like Geo. E. Waring's "Drainage for Profit and for Health;" and if the slope or fall of some fields is very slight, say scarcely one foot in a hundred, the services of an engineer should be employed and accurate grades obtained. By a well-planned system, the cost of draining a place can be greatly reduced, and the water made very useful. ”

“ Every effort should be directed to make the drainage of the same degree throughout the area; it is therefore necessary to know whether the water can be discharged into a channel or adjacent river, or if the bottom of the drains will be above the general water-discharge level of the district so as to prevent the ground being in the condition of a sponge always full of water and becoming a floating mass. ”

“ The heavy storms and showers fill the surface soil beyond saturation, and the water gushes out, literally, into the cellars and other low places. A dry well, sunk through the clay, conducts this water into the gravel bed, and this carries it away. This idea is often applied to land drainage. It is believed that there are immense tracts of fertile land at the West, upon limestone, where the surface might readily be relieved of surplus water, by conducting the mains into wells dug for the purpose. ”

“ The modern drainage system may be assumed to have been at first consequent, that is, dependent for its direction on the slope of the uplifted plain, but it was not long before the effect of geologic structure began to make itself felt. ”

“ Teach the farmers how to lay their drains properly, so that no disappointment will result, and every acre drained will advertise the profits from drainage. Circulate facts in regard to drainage as contributed to the agricultural papers, and even the newspapers. Subscribe for these papers and distribute them. Circulate the essays read at tile-makers' conventions. Talk drainage everywhere and at all times. These were among the means sensibly advocated for increasing the demand for tile. ”

“ Denton. Fig. 37 represents the mode of constructing the common small outlets of field drainage.
Fig. 37.—Small Outlet.
The distinguished engineer, of whose labors we have so [179] freely availed ourselves, remarks as follows upon the subject:
"Too many outlets are objectionable, on account of the labor of their maintenance: too few are objectionable, because they can only exist where there are mains of excessive length. A limit of twenty acres to an outlet, resulting in an average of, perhaps, fourteen acres, will appear, by the practices of the best drainers, to be about the proper thing. ”

“ The water being excluded by embankments against the sea and rivers, and pumped out by steam engines, and the land under-drained generally with tiles, so that the height of the water is under the control of the proprietors, grave disputes have arisen as to the proper amount of drainage. ”

“ Although the rain-fall in England is much less in quantity and much more regular than in this country, yet it is believed that the use of two-inch pipes will be found abundantly sufficient for the admission and conveyance of any quantity of water that it may be necessary to carry off by drainage in common soils. In extraordinary cases, as where the land drained is a swamp, or reservoir for water which falls on the hills around, larger pipes must be used. ”