The earlier portion was fairly described by the Committee of the Bangor Hort. Soc.—(See Report, for 1856, of the Maine Board of Agriculture.) It was far too costly, as usual in works of a novel character conducted without practical knowledge. No part of my draining, even that of this season, has been done so cheaply as it ought to be done in Maine, and will be done when tiles can be bought at fair prices near at hand. I call your attention particularly to this, because the magnitude of the cost, as I represent it, ought not to be taken as a necessary average, or standard outlay per acre, by any one contemplating similar improvement, when almost any farmer can accomplish it equally well at far less cost. My unnecessary expenditures will not have been in vain, if they serve as a finger-post to point others in a profitable way.
My land had upon its surface, and mingled in its super soil, a large quantity of stones, various in size, from the huge boulders, requiring several blasts of powder to reduce them to movable size, to the rubble stones which were shoveled from the cart into the drains. To make clean fields all these had to be removed, besides the many "heaps" which had been accumulated by the industry of my predecessors. A tile-drain needs no addition of stone above the pipe; indeed, the stone may be a positive injury, as harboring field vermin, or, if allowed to come within two feet of the surface, as obstructing deep tillage, and favoring the access of particles of soil upon or into the tile with the rapid access of water which they promote. Carefully placed to the depth of six or eight inches in a four-foot drain, quite small stones are, perhaps, useful, and they certainly facilitate the drawing of water from the surface. Such was, and still is, with many, the prescribed method of best drainage in Scotland, and some parts of England. The increased cost of adding the stone above the tile is obvious; and when the width of that drain is enlarged to receive them, the cost is materially enhanced. Yet such has been my practice, at first, under the impression of its necessity, and all the time from a desire to put to use, and out of sight, the small stones with which I was favored in such abundance. The entire cost of moving, and bringing more than 2,500 heavy loads of stone, is included in the cost of drains, as set down for the 1,745 rods.
Including this part of expense, which is never necessary with tile, and cannot be incurred in plain clay soils, or clay loams free of stones, the last 700 rods cost an average of 97 cents per rod completed. This includes the largest mains; of which, one of 73 rods was opened four feet wide at bottom of the trench, of which the channel capacity is 18 × 18 = 324 square inches, and others 110 rods of three and one-half and three feet width at bottom, all these mains being laid entirely with stone. The remainder of the 700 rods was laid with two-inch tile, which cost at the farm eighteen dollars per 1,000. These last were opened four rods apart, and lay dry about seventeen acres, at a cost, including the mains, of $678, or $40 per acre. In this is included every day's labor of man and beast, and all the incidental expenses, nothing being contributed by the farm, which is under lease.
I infer that an intelligent farmer, beginning aright, and availing himself of the use of team and farm labor, when they can best be spared from other work—as in the dry season, after haying—or paying fair prices for digging his ditches only, and doing the rest of the work from the farm, can drain thoroughly at a cost of $20 per acre, drains four rods apart, and four feet deep; or at $25 per acre, forty feet apart, and three feet nine inches deep.
My subsoil is very hard, requiring constant use of the pick, and sharpening of the picks every day, so that the labor of loosening the earth was one-third or one-half more than the throwing out with a shovel. The price paid per rod, for opening only, to the depth of three and a half feet (or, perhaps, three and three-quarters average,) of a width for laying tile, was 25 cents per rod. At this price, the industrious men, skillful with tools, earned $1.12 to $1.25 per day, besides board; and they threw out one-third more earth than was really necessary, for "room to work" as they said. But they labored hard, 14 hours per day. The same men, working in a soil free from stones, and an easier subsoil, would, in the same time, open from 50 to 100 per cent. more length of ditch.
The greater part of these drains were laid four rods apart. When first trying this distance upon a field, of which the soil was called "springy and cold," and was always too wet in the Spring and early Summer for plowing, a partial, rather than "thorough" drainage was attempted, with the design, at some future day, to lay intermediate drains. The execution of that design may yet appear expedient, although the condition of soil already obtained, is satisfactory beyond expectation.
Owing to the excess of water that saturated the soil in Spring and Fall, the former proprietors of the farm had not attempted the cultivation of the field alluded to, for many years. Originally producing heavy crops of hay, it had been mowed for thirty years or more, and was a good specimen of "exhausted land," yielding one-half or three-fourths of a ton of hay per acre. This field is designated in the plan, as the "barley field, 1858," lies south-west of the dwelling-house, and contains nearly six acres. Its northerly half, being the lower end of the field, was drained in 1855, having been Summer-plowed, and sowed with buckwheat, which was turned under, when in flower, as a fallow crop. The other half was drained in 1856; plowed and subsoiled the same Fall. In 1857, nearly the whole field was planted with roots—potatoes, rutabagas, mangolds, carrots, English turnips, &c.—and one acre in corn. For these crops, fair dressings of manure were applied—say ten or twelve cartloads of barn-manure plowed in, and one hundred pounds of either guano or bone-dust harrowed in, or strewed in the drill, for each acre; about fifteen loads per acre of seasoned muck or peat were also plowed in. There was a good yield of all the roots; for the corn, the season was unfavorable. Last Spring, a light dressing of manure, but all that we could afford, was applied, the whole well ploughed, harrowed, seeded to grass with barley, harrowed, and rolled. The barley was taken off last week; and, from the five and three-quarter acres, seventeen heavy loads were hauled into the barn, each estimated to exceed a ton in weight. The grain from a measured acre was put apart to be separately threshed, and I will advise of its yield when ascertained.[A] This was said, by the many farmers who saw it, including some from the Western States, to be the "handsomest field of grain" they had ever seen. The young grass looks well; and I hope, next Summer, to report a good cut of "hay from drained land."
Last Winter, there were no snows to cover the ground for sleighing until March; and, lying uncovered, our fields were all frozen to an unusual depth. But, our drains did not cease to run through the Winter. And Mr. O. W. Straw, who works the farm, and was requested to note the facts accurately, wrote to me this Spring, "the frost came out of the drained land about one week first" (that is, earlier than from the undrained land adjacent); and, "in regard to working condition, the drained land was in advance of the undrained, ten days, at least." The absence of snow permitting this unusual depth of frost, had caused a rare equality of condition the last Spring, because, until the frost was out, the drains would not draw surface-water. Usually, when early snows have fallen to protect the ground, and it remains covered through the Winter, the frost goes off with the snow, or earlier, and, within a few days, the land becomes in good condition for plowing—quite two weeks earlier than the driest of my undrained fields, or any others in the vicinity.
These remarks apply to land in which the drains are four rods apart. The farm lies with an inclination northerly and easterly, the fall varying from 1 in 33 to 1 in 8; that in most of the drains laid four rods apart, being about 1 in 25. The drains in the "barley field" fall 1 in 27, average, all affording a rapid run of water, which, from the mode of construction, and subsequent subsoiling, finds ready access to the drain-channels. Hence, we never observe running water upon the surface of any of our drained lands, either during the heaviest rains, or when snows are melting, and the wasteful "washing" from the surface that formerly injured our plowed grounds, has ceased.
It is fair to suppose that it is the considerable descent which renders the drains so effectual at four rods apart; and that where there is but slight fall, other circumstances being the same, it would be necessary to lay drains much nearer, for equal service.