CHAPTER VII. - "WILL IT PAY?"
Starting with the basis of $60, as the cost of draining an acre of ordinary farm land;—what is the prospect that the work will prove remunerative?
In all of the older States, farmers are glad to lend their surplus funds, on bond and mortgage on their neighbors' farms, with interest at the rate of 7, and often 6 per cent.
In view of the fact that a little attention must be given each year to the outlets, and, to the silt-basins, as well, for the first few years, it will be just to charge for the use of the capital 8-1/3 per cent.
This will make a yearly charge on the land, for the benefits resulting from such a system of draining as has been described, of five dollars per acre.
Will it Pay?—Will the benefits accruing, year after year,—in wet seasons and in dry,—with root crops and with grain,—with hay and with fruit,—in rotations of crops and in pasture,—be worth $5 an acre?
On this question depends the value of tile-draining as a practical improvement, for if there is a self-evident proposition in agriculture, it is that what is not profitable, one year with another, is not practical.
To counterbalance the charge of $5, as the yearly cost[pg 162] of the draining, each acre must produce, in addition to what it would have yielded without the improvement:
10 bushels of Corn at .50 per bushel.
3 bushels of Wheat at $1.66 per bushel.
5 bushels of Rye at 1.00 per bushel.
12-1/2 bushels of Oats at .40 per bushel.
10 bushels of Potatoes at .50 per bushel.
6-2/3 bushels of Barley at .75 per bushel.
1,000 pounds of Hay at 10.00 per ton.
50 pounds of Cotton at .10 per pound.
20 pounds of Tobacco at .25 per pound.
Surely this is not a large increase,—not in a single case,—and the prices are generally less than may be expected for years to come.
The United States Census Report places the average crop of Indian Corn, in Indiana and Illinois, at 33 bushels per acre. In New York it was but 27 bushels, and in Pennsylvania but 20 bushels. It would certainly be accounted extremely liberal to fix the average yield of such soils as need draining, at 30 bushels per acre. It is extremely unlikely that they would yield this, in the average of seasons, with the constantly recurring injury from backward springs, summer droughts, and early autumn frosts.
Heavy, retentive soils, which are cold and late in the spring, subject to hard baking in midsummer, and to become cold and wet in the early fall, are the very ones which are best suited, when drained, to the growth of Indian Corn. They are "strong" and fertile,—and should be able to absorb, and to prepare for the use of plants, the manure which is applied to them, and the fertilizing matters which are brought to them by each storm;—but they cannot properly exercise the functions of fertile soils, for the reason that they are strangled with water, chilled by evaporation, or baked to almost brick-like hardness, during nearly the whole period of the growth and ripening of the crop.[pg 163] The manure which has been added to them, as well as their own chemical constituents, are prevented from undergoing those changes which are necessary to prepare them for the uses of vegetation. The water of rains, finding the spaces in the soil already occupied by the water of previous rains, cannot enter to deposit the gases which it contains,—or, if the soil has been dried by evaporation under the influence of sun and wind, the surface is almost hermetically sealed, and the water is only slowly soaked up, much of it running off over the surface, or lying to be removed by the slow and chilling process of evaporation. In wet times and in dry, the air, with its heat, its oxygen, and its carbonic acid, (its universal solvent,) is forbidden to enter and do its beneficent work. The benefit resulting from cultivating the surface of the ground is counteracted by the first unfavorable change of the weather; a single heavy rain, by saturating the soil, returning it to nearly its original condition of clammy compactness. In favorable seasons, these difficulties are lessened, but man has no control over the seasons, and to-morrow may be as foul as to-day has been fair. A crop of corn on undrained, retentive ground, is subject to injury from disastrous changes of the weather, from planting until harvest. Even supposing that, in the most favorable seasons, it would yield as largely as though the ground were drained, it would lose enough in unfavorable seasons to reduce the average more than ten (10) bushels per acre.
The average crop, on such land, has been assumed to be 30 bushels per acre; it would be an estimate as moderate as this one is generous, to say that, with the same cultivation and the same manure, the average crop, after draining, would be 50 bushels, or an increase equal to twice as much as is needed to pay the draining charge. If the method of cultivation is improved, by deep plowing, ample manuring, and thorough working,—all of which may be more profitably applied to drained than to undrained[pg 164] land,—the average crop,—of a series of years,—will not be less than 60 bushels.
The cost of extra harvesting will be more than repaid by the value of the extra fodder, and the increased cultivation and manuring are lasting benefits, which can be charged, only in small part, to the current crop. Therefore, if it will pay to plow, plant, hoe and harvest for 30 bushels of corn, it will surely pay much better to double the crop at a yearly extra cost of $5, and, practically, it amounts to this;—the extra crop is nearly all clear gain.
The quantity of Wheat required to repay the annual charge for drainage is so small, that no argument is needed to show that any process which will simply prevent "throwing out" in winter, and the failure of the plant in the wetter parts of the field, will increase the product more than that amount,—to say nothing of the general importance to this crop of having the land in the most perfect condition, (in winter as well as in summer.)
It is stated that, since the general introduction of drainage in England, (within the past 25 years,) the wheat crop of that country has been more than doubled. Of course, it does not necessarily follow that the amount per acre has been doubled, large areas which were originally unfit for the growth of this crop, having been, by draining, excellently fitted for its cultivation;—but there can be no doubt that its yield has been greatly increased on all drained lands, nor that large areas, which, before being drained, were able to produce fair crops only in the best seasons, are now made very nearly independent of the weather.
It is not susceptible of demonstration, but it is undoubtedly true, that those clay or other heavy soils, which are devoted to the growth of wheat in this country, would, if they were thoroughly under-drained, produce, on the average of years, at least double their present crop.
Mr. John Johnston, a venerable Scotch farmer, who has[pg 165] long been a successful cultivator in the Wheat region of Western New York,—and who was almost the pioneer of tile-draining in America,—has laid over 50 miles of drains within the last 30 years. His practice is described in Klippart's Land Drainage, from which work we quote the following:
"Mr. Johnston says he never saw 100 acres in any one farm, but a portion of it would pay for draining. Mr. Johnston is no rich man who has carried a favorite hobby without regard to cost or profit. He is a hardworking Scotch farmer, who commenced a poor man, borrowed money to drain his land, has gradually extended his operations, and is now reaping the benefits, in having crops of 40 bushels of wheat to the acre. He is a gray-haired Nestor, who, after accumulating the experience of a long life, is now, at 68 years of age, written to by strangers in every State of the Union for information, not only in drainage matters, but all cognate branches of farming. He sits in his homestead, a veritable Humboldt in his way, dispensing information cheerfully through our agricultural papers and to private correspondents, of whom he has recorded 164 who applied to him last year. His opinions are, therefore, worth more than those of a host of theoretical men, who write without practice." * * * * *
"Although his farm is mainly devoted to wheat, yet a considerable area of meadow and some pasture has been retained. He now owns about 300 acres of land. The yield of wheat has been 40 bushels this year, and in former seasons, when his neighbors were reaping 8, 10, or 15 bushels, he has had 30 and 40." * * * * *
"Mr. Johnston says tile-draining pays for itself in two seasons, sometimes in one. Thus, in 1847, he bought a piece of 10 acres to get an outlet for his drains. It was a perfect quagmire, covered with coarse aquatic grasses, and so unfruitful that it would not give back the seed[pg 166] sown upon it. In 1848 a crop of corn was taken from it, which was measured and found to be eighty bushels per acre, and as, because of the Irish famine, corn was worth $1 per bushel that year, this crop paid not only all the expense of drainage, but the first cost of the land as well.
"Another piece of 20 acres, adjoining the farm of the late John Delafield, was wet, and would never bring more than 10 bushels of corn per acre. This was drained at a great cost, nearly $30 per acre. The first crop after this was 83 bushels and some odd pounds per acre. It was weighed and measured by Mr. Delafield, and the County Society awarded a premium to Mr. Johnston. Eight acres and some rods of this land, at one side, averaged 94 bushels, or the trifling increase of 84 bushels per acre over what it would bear before those insignificant clay tiles were buried in the ground. But this increase of crop is not the only profit of drainage; for Mr. Johnston says that, on drained land, one half the usual quantity of manure suffices to give maximum crops. It is not difficult to find a reason for this. When the soil is sodden with water, air can not enter to any extent, and hence oxygen can not eat off the surfaces of soil-particles and prepare food for plants; thus the plant must in great measure depend on the manure for sustenance, and, of course, the more this is the case, the more manure must be applied to get good crops. This is one reason, but there are others which we might adduce if one good one were not sufficient.
"Mr. Johnston says he never made money until he drained, and so convinced is he of the benefits accruing from the practice, that he would not hesitate,—as he did not when the result was much more uncertain than at present,—to borrow money to drain. Drains well laid, endure, but unless a farmer intends doing the job well, he had best leave it alone and grow poor, and move out West, and all that sort of thing. Occupiers of apparently[pg 167] dry land are not safe in concluding that they need not go to the expense of draining, for if they will but dig a three-foot ditch in even the driest soil, water will be found in the bottom at the end of eight hours, and if it does come, then draining will pay for itself speedily."
Some years ago, the Rural New Yorker published a letter from one of its correspondents from which the following is extracted:—
"I recollect calling upon a gentleman in the harvest field, when something like the following conversation occurred:
'Your wheat, sir, looks very fine; how many acres have you in this field?'
'In the neighborhood of eight, I judge.'
'Did you sow upon fallow?'
'No sir. We turned over green sward—sowed immediately upon the sod, and dragged it thoroughly—and you see the yield will probably be 25 bushels to the acre, where it is not too wet.'
'Yes sir, it is mostly very fine. I observed a thin strip through it, but did not notice that it was wet.'
'Well, it is not very wet. Sometimes after a rain, the water runs across it, and in spring and fall it is just wet enough to heave the wheat and kill it.'
I inquired whether a couple of good drains across the lot would not render it dry.
'Perhaps so—but there is not over an acre that is killed out.'
'Have you made an estimate of the loss you annually sustain from this wet place?'
'No, I had not thought much about it.'
'Would $30 be too high?'
'O yes, double.'
'Well, let's see; it cost you $3 to turn over the sward? Two bushels of seed, $2; harrowing in, 75 cents; interest, taxes, and fences, $5.25; 25 bushels of wheat lost, $25.'
'Deduct for harvesting—--'
'No; the straw would pay for that.'
'Very well, all footed $36.'
'What will the wheat and straw on this acre be worth this year?'
'Nothing, as I shall not cut the ground over.'
'Then it appears that you have lost, in what you have actually expended, and the wheat you would have harvested, had the ground been dry, $36, a pretty large sum for one acre.'
'Yes I see,' said the farmer."
While Rye may be grown, with tolerable advantage, on lands which are less perfectly drained than is necessary for Wheat, there can be no doubt that an increase of more than the six and two-thirds bushels needed to make up the drainage charge will be the result of the improvement.
While Oats will thrive in soils which are too wet for many other crops, the ability to plant early, which is secured by an early removal from the soil of its surplus water, will ensure, one year with another, more than twelve and a half bushels of increased product.
In the case of Potatoes, also, the early planting will be a great advantage; and, while the cause of the potato-rot is not yet clearly discovered, it is generally conceded that, even if it does not result directly from too great wetness of the soil, its development is favored by this condition, either from a direct action on the tubers, or from the effect in the air immediately about the plants, of the exhalations of a humid soil.
An increase of from five to ten per cent. on a very ordinary crop of potatoes, will cover the drainage charge, and with facilities for marketing, the higher price of the earlier yield is of much greater consequence.
Barley will not thrive in wet soil, and there is no question that drainage would give it much more than the increased yield prescribed above.
As to hay, there are many wet, rich soils which produce very large crops of grass, and it is possible that drainage might not always cause them to yield a thousand pounds more of hay to the acre, but the quality of the hay from the drained soil, would, of itself, more than compensate for the drainage charge. The great benefit of the improvement, with reference to this crop, however, lies in the fact that, although wet, grass lands,—and by "wet" is meant the condition of undrained, retentive clays, and heavy loams, or other soils requiring drainage,—in a very few years "run out," or become occupied by semi-aquatic[pg 169] and other objectionable plants, to the exclusion of the proper grasses; the same lands, thoroughly drained, may be kept in full yield of the finest hay plants, as long as the ground is properly managed. It must, of course, be manured, from time to time, and care should be taken to prevent the puddling of its surface, by men or animals, while it is too wet from recent rain. With proper attention to these points, it need not be broken up in a lifetime, and it may be relied on to produce uniformly good crops, always equal to the best obtained before drainage.
So far as Cotton and Tobacco are concerned, there are not many instances recorded of the systematic drainage of lands appropriated to their cultivation, but there is every reason to suppose that they will both be benefitted by any operation which will have the effect of placing the soil in a better condition for the uses of all cultivated plants. The average crop of tobacco is about 700 lbs., and that of cotton probably 250 lbs. An addition of one-fifth to the cotton crop, and of only one thirty-fifth to the tobacco crop, would make the required increase.
The failure of the cotton crop, during the past season, (1866,) might have been entirely prevented, in many districts, by the thorough draining of the land.
The advantages claimed for drainage with reference to the above-named staple crops, will apply with equal, if not greater force, to all garden and orchard culture. In fact, with the exception of osier willows, and cranberries, there is scarcely a cultivated plant which will not yield larger and better crops on drained than on undrained land,—enough better, and enough larger, to pay much more than the interest on the cost of the improvement.
Yet, this advantage of draining, is, by no means, the only one which is worthy of consideration. Since the object of cultivation is to produce remunerative crops, of course, the larger and better the crops, the more completely is the object attained;—and to this extent the greatest[pg 170] benefit resulting from draining, lies in the increased yield. But there is another advantage,—a material and moral advantage,—which is equally to be considered.
Instances of the profit resulting from under-draining, (coupled, as it almost always is, with improved cultivation,) are frequently published, and it would be easy to fortify this chapter with hundreds of well authenticated cases. It is, however, deemed sufficient to quote the following, from an old number of one of the New York dailies:—
"Some years ago, the son of an English farmer came to the United States, and let himself as a farm laborer, in New York State, on the following conditions: Commencing work at the first of September, he was to work ten hours a day for three years, and to receive in payment a deed of a field containing twelve acres—securing himself by an agreement, by which his employer was put under bonds of $2,000 to fulfill his part of the contract; also, during these three years, he was to have the control of the field; to work it at his own expense, and to give his employer one-half the proceeds. The field lay under the south side of a hill, was of dark, heavy clay resting on a bluish-colored, solid clay subsoil, and for many years previous, had not been known to yield anything but a yellowish, hard, stunted vegetation.
"The farmer thought the young man was a simpleton, and that he, himself, was most wise and fortunate; but the former, nothing daunted by this opinion, which he was not unconscious that the latter entertained of him, immediately hired a set of laborers, and set them to work in the field trenching, as earnestly as it was well possible for men to labor. In the morning and evening, before and after having worked his ten hours, as per agreement, he worked with them, and continued to work in this way until, about the middle of the following November, he had finished the laying of nearly 5,000 yards of good tile under-drains. He then had the field plowed deep and thoroughly, and the earth thrown up as much as possible into ridges, and thus let it remain during the winter. Next spring he had the field again plowed as before, then cross-plowed and thoroughly pulverized with a heavy harrow, then sowed it with oats and clover. The yield was excellent—nothing to be compared to it had ever before been seen upon that field. Next year it gave two crops of clover, of a rich dark green, and enormously heavy and luxuriant; and the year following, after being manured at an expense of some $7 an acre, nine acres of the field yielded 936 bushels of corn, and 25 wagon loads of pumpkins; while from the remaining three acres were taken 100 bushels of potatoes—the return of this crop being upwards of $1,200. The time had now come for the field to fall into the young[pg 171] man's possession, and the farmer unhesitatingly offered him $1,500 to relinquish his title to it; and when this was unhesitatingly refused, he offered $2,000, which was accepted.
"The young man's account stood thus
| Half proceeds of oats and straw, first year | $165 00 |
| Half value of sheep pasturage, first year | 25 00 |
| Half of first crops of clover, first year | 112 50 |
| Half of second crops of clover, including seed, second year | 135 00 |
| Half of sheep pasturage, second year | 15 00 |
| Half of crops of corn, pumpkins and potatoes, third year | 690 00 |
| Received from farmer, for relinquishment of title | 2,000 00 |
| ——— | |
| Account Dr. | $3,142 50 |
| To under-draining, labor and tiles | $325 00 |
| To labor and manure, three seasons | 475 00 |
| To labor given to farmer, $16 per month, 36 months | 576 00—1,376 00 |
| ——— | |
| Balance in his favor | $1,766 50 |
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. 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. What he does by the work of days, is mainly undone by a single night's storm. Weeds grow apace, and the land is too wet to admit of their being exterminated. By the time that it is dry enough, other pressing work[pg 172] occupies the time; and if, finally, a day comes when they may be attacked, they offer ten times the resistance that they would have done a week earlier. The operations of the farm are carried on more expensively than if the ability to work constantly allowed a smaller force to be employed. The crops which give such doubtful promise, require the same cultivation as though they were certain to be remunerative, and the work can be done only with increased labor, because of the bad condition of the soil.
From force of tradition and of habit, the farmer accepts his fate and plods through his hard life, piously ascribing to the especial interference of an inscrutable Providence, the trials which come of his own neglect to use the means of relief which Providence has placed within his reach.
Trouble enough he must have, at any rate, but not necessarily all that he now has. 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.
In the practice of agriculture, which is pre-eminently an economic art, draining will be prosecuted because of the pecuniary profit which it promises, and,—very properly,—it will not be pursued, to any considerable extent, where the money, which it costs, will not bring money in return. Yet, in a larger view of the case, its collateral advantages are of even greater moment than its mere profits. It is the foundation and the commencement of the most intelligent farming. It opens the way for other[pg 173] improvements, which, without it, would produce only doubtful or temporary benefits; and it enables the farmer so to extend and enlarge his operations, with fair promise of success, as to raise his occupation from a mere waiting upon the uncertain favors of nature, to an intelligent handling of her forces, for the attainment of almost certain results.
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; doing everything in his power that may tend to the production of the results which he desires, and, so far as possible, avoiding everything that may interfere with his success,—leaving nothing to chance that can be secured, and securing all that chance may offer,—is engaged in the most ennobling, the most intelligent and the most progressive of all industrial avocations.
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.