Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

On my place at Cornwall I found three acres of wet land, each in turn illustrating one of the causes which make drainage necessary. I used stone, because, in some instances, no other material would have answered, in others partly because I was a novice in the science of drainage, and partly because I had the stones on my place, and did not know what else to do with them. I certainly could not cart them on my neighbors' ground without having a surplus of hot as well as cold water, so I concluded to bury them in the old-fashioned box-drains. Indeed, I found rather peculiar and difficult problems of drainage, and the history of their solution may contain useful hints to the reader.

In front of my house there is a low, level plot of land, containing about three acres. Upon this the surface water ran from all sides, and there was no outlet. The soil was, in consequence, sour, and in certain spots only a wiry marsh grass would grow. And yet it required, but a glance to see that a drain, which could carry off this surface water immediately, would render it the best land on the place. I tried, in vain, the experiment of digging a deep, wide ditch across the entire tract, in hopes of finding a porous subsoil. Then I excavated great, deep holes, but came to a blue clay that held water like rubber. The porous subsoil, in which I knew the region abounded, and which makes Cornwall exceptionally free from all miasmatic troubles, eluded our spades like hidden treasures. I eventually found that I must obtain permission of a neighbor to carry a drain across another farm to the mountain stream that empties into the Hudson at Cornwall Landing. The covered drain through the adjoining place was deep and expensive, but the ditch across my land (marked A on the map) is a small one, walled with stone on either side. It answers my purpose, however, giving me as good strawberry land as I could wish. On both sides of this open ditch, and at right angles with it, I had the ground plowed into beds 130 feet long by 21 wide. The shallow depressions between these beds slope gently toward the ditch, and thus, after every storm, the surface water, which formerly often, covered the entire area, is at once carried away. I think my simple, shallow, open drain is better than tile in this instance.

[Illustration: Map showing experiments in the drainage of a strawberry farm]

As may be seen from the map, my farm is peculiar in outline, and resembles an extended city lot, being 2,550 feet long, and only 410 wide.

The house, as shown by the engraving, stands on quite an elevation, in the rear of which the land descends into another swale or basin. The drainage of this presented a still more difficult problem. Not only did the surface water run into it, but in moist seasons the ground was full of springs. The serious feature of the case was that there seemed to be no available outlet in any direction. Unlike the mellow, sandy loam in front of the house, the swale in the rear was of the stiffest kind of clay—just the soil to retain and be spoiled by water. During the first year of our residence here this region was sometimes a pond, sometimes a quagmire, while again, under the summer sun, it baked into earthenware. It was a doubtful question whether this stubborn acre could be subdued, and yet its heavy clay gave me just the diversity of soil I needed. Throughout the high gravelly knoll on which the house stands, the natural drainage is perfect, and a sagacious neighbor suggested that if I cut a ditch across the clayey swale into the gravel of the knoll, the water would find a natural outlet and disappear.

The ditch was dug eight feet wide and five feet deep, for I decided to utilize the surface of the drain as a road-bed. Passing out of the clay and hard-pan, we came into the gravel, and it seemed porous enough to carry off a fair-sized stream. I concluded that my difficult problem had found a cheap and easy solution, and to make assurance doubly sure, I directed the men to dig a deep pit and fill it with stones. When they had gone about nine feet below the surface, I happened to be standing on the brink of the excavation, watching the work. A laborer struck his pick into the gravel, when a stream gushed out which in its sudden abundance suggested that which flowed in the wilderness at the stroke of Moss's rod. The problem was now complicated anew. So far from finding an outlet, I had dug a well which the men could scarcely bail out fast enough to permit of its being stoned up.

My neighbors remarked that my wide ditch reminded them of the Erie canal, and my wife was in terror lest the children should be drowned in it. Now something had to be done, and I called in the services of Mr. Caldwell, city surveyor of Newburgh, and to his map I refer the reader for a clearer understanding of my tasks.

Between the upper and lower swales, the ridge on which the house stands slopes to its greatest depression along its western boundary, and I was shown that if I would cut deep enough, the open drain in the lower swale could receive and carry off the water from the upper basin. This appeared Tobe the only resource, but with my limited means it was like a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The old device of emptying my drains into a hole that practically had no bottom, suggested itself to me. It would be so much easier and cheaper that I resolved once more to try it, though with hopes naturally dampened by my last moist experience. I directed that the hole (marked B on the map) should be oblong, and in the direct line of the ditch, so that if it failed of its purpose it could become a part of the drain. Down we went into as perfect sand and gravel as I ever saw, and the deeper we dug the dryer it became. This time, in wounding old "Mother Earth," we did not cut a vein, and there seemed a fair prospect of our creating a new one, for into this receptacle I decided to turn my largest drain and all the water that the stubborn acre persisted in keeping.

I therefore had a "box-drain" constructed along the western boundary of the place (marked C) until it reached the lowest spot in the upper swale. This drain was simply and rapidly constructed, in the following manner: a ditch was first dug sufficiently deep and wide, and with, a fall that carried off the water rapidly. In the bottom of this ditch the men built two roughly faced walls, one foot high and eight inches apart. Comparatively long, flat stones, that would reach from wall to wall, were easily found, and thus we had a covered water-course, eight by twelve inches, forming the common box-drain that will usually last a lifetime.

The openings over the channel were carefully "chinked" in with small stones and all covered with inverted sods, shavings, leaves, or anything that prevented the loose soil from sifting or washing down into the water-course.