The work was finished last Autumn, and we have had but the experience of a single season with it; but we are satisfied that the object is attained. The surface of the implement cellar, which before, had been always soft and muddy, has ever since been as dry and solid as a highway in Summer; and the root cellar, which has a cemented bottom, is as dry as the barn floor. The manure can now be teamed out, without leaving a rut, and we are free to confess, that the effect is greater than we had deemed possible.
The following cut will show at a glance, how all the drains are laid, the dotted lines representing the tile drains:
Fig. 100.
The drain outside the barn, on the right, leads from a spring, some two hundred feet off, into the cellar and into the yard, and supplies water to the cattle, at the points indicated. The waste water is then conducted into the drains, and passes off.
CHAPTER XXIII
DRAINAGE OF SWAMPS.
Vast Extent of Swamp Lands in the United States.—Their Soil.—Sources of their Moisture.—How to Drain them.—The Soil Subsides by Draining.—Catch-water Drains.—Springs.—Mr. Ruffin's Drainage in Virginia.—Is there Danger of Over-draining?
In almost, if not quite every State, extensive tracts of swamp lands are found, not only unfit, in their natural condition, for cultivation, but, in many instances, by reason of obnoxious effluvia, arising from stagnant water, dangerous to health.
Of the vast extent of such lands, some idea may be formed, by adverting to the fact, that under the grants by Congress, of the public lands given away to the States in which they lie, as of no value to the Government and as nuisances to their neighborhood, in their natural condition; sixty millions of acres, it is estimated, will be included.