I 
 
O f Aj ; Co] 
 
 COLE'S COMBINED SYSTEM 
 
 Drainage and Irrigation. 
 
 A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE," 
 
 ORIGINATED BY 
 
 A. N. COLE, WELLSVILLE, ALLEGANY CO., N. Y. 
 
 A. F. COLK 
 
 PRICE IN PAPER COVER, 75 Cents; CLOTH, $1.00. 
 
 
Copyright, 1889. 
 BY A. P. COLE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface 5 
 
 Biographical Sketch of A. N. Cole 7-8 
 
 Water a Necessity for Vegetation 23 
 
 Drainage 29 
 
 The New System 33 
 
 Stone Storage Trenches 33 
 
 Tile 36 
 
 Square " 36 
 
 Cement " (For Sand Lands) 37 
 
 Depth and Distance of Storage Trenches 38 
 
 Family and Market Gardens 39 
 
 Lawns 40 
 
 Orchards . 40 
 
 Grass Lands 41 
 
 Arable Lands 42 
 
 Artesian Wells 42 
 
 Swamp Lands 43 
 
 Workings of the System 44 
 
 Effects on Soil. 46 
 
 " Crops 48 
 
 Builds up Soils 50 
 
 Use of Hot Water 56 
 
 Five Crops a Year 57 
 
 Irrigation in Florida 65 
 
 Mr. Cole's Model Plot 68 
 
 Reports 69 
 
 French Methods 86 
 
 Ridits of Application 97 
 
 Obituary... 99-103 
 
 298122 
 
* PREFHCE, 
 
 TV CONSTANT and increasing demand from every part of the 
 world, especially from all sections of our own country, for a 
 cheap Manual descriptive of Mr. Cole's system of Drainage and 
 Irrigation, has at last induced him to intrust to me the work of 
 arranging this book, he being too ill at this time to do so. In its 
 .preparation I shall endeavor to treat the subject in a most practi- 
 cal manner, and in the fewest possible words necessary to the end 
 in view, and yet complete enough that all may fully understand, and 
 for themselves see its numberless advantages and possibilities. 
 
 In the facts stated we have been conservative, feeling it better 
 to under, rather than overdraw them. 
 
 Speaking for Mr. Cole, we extend to every reader of this Man- 
 ual an invitation to visit the " Home on the Hillside,' 1 and make 
 personal examination of his work and its results. The grounds are 
 open to public inspection at all times. 
 
 A. P. COLE. 
 
Biographical sketch of the life and services of the 
 
 Hon. A. N. Cole, of the Home on the Hillside, 
 
 Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 As a frontispiece to this volume, we open its pages by introduction 
 of the likeness of the originator of what has been denominated 
 aquaculture, "the new agriculture," or sub-irrigation. The relations 
 of father and son existing between the author of this sketch and the origi- 
 nator of the New Agriculture, makes it a matter of delicacy to undertake 
 this biography, and yet, feeling as we do that none know the man on 
 whose life we discourse better than his firstborn, we waive considerations 
 of delicacy and proceed to our work cheerfully. It would be impossible to 
 write out in anything like detail even the more striking features of the 
 life of a man of whom it may be aptly said he knew no youth, but entered 
 upon the work of the full-grown man at the age of fourteen, knowing little 
 of rest or respite for the full period of three score years, having wrought 
 almost incessantly in one way and another for the good of his fellow-men. 
 Inclined to leave to the pens of others, as far as may be, that manner 
 of mention most commendatory of his work, we introduce at opening an 
 editorial appearing a few months since in the columns of "Colman's Rural 
 World," as follows: "Mr. Cole was born in Cattaraugus County, N. Y., 
 in 1821, and is no longer a young man in the matter of years. He comes 
 from grand old stock, and inherits an amount of vitality which renews its 
 youth with passing years, hence never gets old. The Plymouth or Roger 
 Williams Colony at Freedom, Cattaraugus County, N. Y., embraced rep- 
 resentatives of the blue blood of nearly or quite all of the early Pilgrim 
 families. The first great swarm that went out from Plymouth and Provi- 
 dence settled in the Genessee Valley and along the Cattaraugus Creek in 
 the beginning of the present century. Others followed until nearly all 
 the counties of Western New York, North-western Pennsylvania, and the 
 
DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION, 
 
 Western Reserve, Ohio, were embraced in the territory settled by this 
 class of families with their sturdy New England manhood and radical 
 characteristics. The prevailing sentiment was democratic, though the 
 percentage in New England was quite as generally federal as democratic. 
 A recent writer referring to this matter says, 'the Coles were fearful 
 fighters, intermarrying with the Standish and other martial blood. The 
 Roger Williams family and that ol the Hathaways, Hoags, etc., were 
 Quakers in spirit but would fight like devils if driven to it. This was the 
 class of farmers who, hearing the guns at Bunker Hill and Lexington, 
 left their oxen in the field and plows in the furrow, rushed to their barns, 
 and seizing scythes and pitchforks, went out and took a hand in the fight. 
 This is the stock from which our subject comes and this the blood he 
 inherits." 
 
 That the reader may take in the situation, the author of this sketch 
 will say that, to understand the manner of blood represented in the 
 person of the discoverer of the New Agriculture, reference to a volume 
 entitled " Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth/' by William T. Davis, pub- 
 lished by A. Williams & Company, Old Corner Book Store, Boston, in 
 1883, will disclose the fact that James Cole, of Cole's Hill, Plymouth, 
 from whom the subject of this sketch was in direct line descended, was 
 found dwelling near Highgate, London, in 1616, who was a great lover of 
 plants and flowers, and married a daughter of Lobel, the celebrated 
 botanist, who was the physician of James the First, from whom the plant 
 lobelia derives its name. Not long after, said James Cole, having with 
 two brothers and their families, emigrated to America, were found among 
 earliest of settlers at Plymouth, James in possession of lands on Cole's 
 Hill, a spot as historic as any perhaps in the Old Colony. Of the an- 
 tiquity of the house in which James Cole followed the occupation of 
 vintner, the reader may judge by the following appearing in the diary of 
 Judge Sewall, one among earlier jurists of Old Colony fame. Judge 
 Sewall says, at date of March 8th, 1598: " Get to Plymouth about noon, 
 and lodge at Cole's. The house was built by Governor Winslow, and is 
 the oldest in Plymouth." Still more notable is the name of Roger Wil- 
 liams, of Rhode Island, father of freedom and religious toleration in the 
 New World, from whom in direct line came Joanna Williams Cole, mother 
 of A. N. Cole, having been, as we understand it, a great-granddaughter 
 of Joseph Williams, great-grandson of Roger Williams. Nor was it alone 
 in direct lines of blood and lineage that the subject of our sketch inher- 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 9 
 
 ited characteristics such as few men of his day and generation have 
 seemed to possess in eminent degree. It was E. V. Smalley of the 
 North-west, whose life work has so largely impressed itself on the newer 
 states and territories, who, in a letter of recent date, addressed to Mr. 
 Cole, says : " You put me forcibly in mind of my old friend Albert Bris- 
 bane, who held that man's chief mission on earth was to improve, beau- 
 tify, and adorn the planet on which he lives." How early in life the pas- 
 sion developed in Mr. Cole so ruling above all others throughout, his love 
 for plants, fruits, and flowers, we cannot say, but writing at the age of 
 forty-four have only to say that our memory does not reach back to a 
 time when our father's delight was anywhere so great as in home and 
 garden. Rare fruits were his special delight, strawberries his favorite. 
 To find out the way, and make it known toothers, how to grow all varieties 
 of plants and secure utmost profusion and perfection was his constant 
 endeavor. That this disposition not only, but that equally of the crusader in 
 moral, social, religious, and political progress came to a marked degree 
 from that marriage and intermarriage among families of the Plymouth 
 and Providence colonies discovered in genealogical lines of fully two 
 hundred years, antedating the general exodus from these colonies into 
 more western settlements mentioned in "Colman's Rural World," an ex- 
 amination of the volume referred to, entitled "Ancient Landmarks of 
 Plymouth, will make unmistakably manifest. 
 
 When we say that the focus of moral, religious, and political pro- 
 pulsion so characterizing the progress of the American people, more es- 
 pecially in the last decade of the eighteenth, and thus far throughout 
 the nineteenth centuries, can be no more becomingly fixed than at Free- 
 dom, Rowland's Flats, Arcade, and their vicinities, where founded was 
 the Roger Williams Colony at Cole's Settlement, Cattaraugus County, 
 erecting churches and establishing schools in propagation of their faiths 
 in religion and politics, we state what is simply a fact. Thence radi-- 
 ating outward in all directions, the influence of these settlers will be plainly 
 discovered throughout that region where Horace Greeley was found in 
 his early life helping his father, during his struggles in Wayne, Erie 
 County, Pennsylvania, on the State line opposite Clymer, Chautauqua 
 County, N. Y., while hewing out of the wilderness a home. William H. 
 Seward was acting as land agent at Westfield, Chautauqua County, N. 
 Y., making history as a co-worker with George W. Patterson; and where 
 somewhat later, Joshua R. Giddings and old Ben Wade, in their humble 
 
io DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 law office at Jefferson, Ohio, were found breaking the fallow ground of 
 freedom to all, and born and bred was James A. Garfield and others 
 without number, making history for all time, in and outside of Ohio, now 
 become emphatically, in the stead of Virginia, the mother of presidents. 
 Alongside of these in Pennsylvania were found the counties of Erie, Craw- 
 ford, Warren, Potter, McKean, Tioga, Bradford, Susquehanna, &c.. where 
 that young Saul of his day and generation, David Wilmot, a full head taller 
 than that of any of his brethren, swayed sentiment to good degree, not only 
 throughout the Keystone State, but all over the American Union. It is in 
 this region, especially in the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chau- 
 tauqua, where in fullest force was early developed that irrepressible con- 
 flict between freedom and slavery, so for a full generation, at least, convul- 
 sing our country. It is here, whether on records of fame among the living, 
 or on those of marble and granite, are most found the names of families of 
 the Old Colonies of Plymouth and Providence. Here it was that A. N. 
 Cole in early childhood, his father and mother dying when he was but 
 about four years of age, was brought out of the woods and adopted by 
 Asher P. and Polly Hickox, of Pike, then Allegany, since Wyoming County, 
 N. Y., his adoption having been arranged by kinsmen. He was about five 
 and a half years old when adopted, and during the next ten years spent not 
 far from four years in all of study at the village school, where, such was the 
 rapidity with which he made progress with his studies, as to become a won- 
 der to his teachers. 
 
 Of the period at which he learned his letters he has no recollection, 
 but infers that these were gotten at his mothers knee. Suffice it to say, 
 that from books purchased for his reading by his foster parents, and more 
 especially from a fine library of the times, possessed by a neighboring lady 
 of culture and refinement, Mrs. A. A. Emery, he secured the reading of 
 poems, a few works of historical romance, volumes treating on navigation 
 and discovery, &c., &c. Among all of these books none made a deeper 
 impression than a little volume entitled the " Life of Benjamin Franklin, " 
 written by himself. Here he became acquainted with " Poor Richard," so 
 like to Horace Greeley of later times, and from " Poor Richard's Almanac " 
 the lad gleaned an amount of knowledge impossible to calculate. He had 
 reached the age of eleven, and somewhat upward, when somewhere finding, 
 we think, in this renowned calendar, a mention of Chinese agriculture, he 
 was prepared to learn with avidity more upon the subject as found in one 
 of the most remarkable books published up to that period, to wit : the "Uni- 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. n 
 
 versal Geography," of Jedidia Morse, which was possibly the most compre- 
 hensive and complete summary of geographical and historical events em- 
 bodied in any volume of the times anywhere. Obtaining the book, under 
 the head of " Chinese Agriculture," page 417, second volume, he found the 
 following : " The Chinese agriculture is carried to a high state of improve- 
 ment. On the sides of their steepest hills terraces are formed, supported 
 by walls of stone, and the whole mountain is cultivated to the summit, 
 where reservoirs are sunk, into which rain waters are collected and conveyed 
 around the terraces down to the base of the mountain. With great toil the 
 people collect every species of manure. Prodigious numbers of old men, 
 women, and children are constantly employed in the streets and on the 
 banks of the rivers and canals, with baskets tied before them, collecting 
 every kind of manure. The Chinese farmers apply liquid manure to the 
 roots of their plants and trees. They also steep their seeds in liquid 
 manure until they germinate, before they are sown." 
 
 This item of knowledge, touching the methods in agriculture practiced 
 by a people whose progress as regards certain arts and sciences antedates 
 those of perhaps any other nation, opened up a vista of the future to the 
 eyes of the boy reading it, having seemingly the bringing out of a system, 
 which, quoting from a leading editorial of the late and lamented William 
 Dorsheimer of the New York Star, appearing February nth, 1887, under 
 head of 
 
 No MORE DROUGHT. 
 
 It will be remembered that some months ago the Star opened its 
 columns to the discussion of a most interesting theory of the possible pre- 
 servation of water. It was Mr. A. N. Cole of Wellsville, Alleghany County, 
 N. Y., who first propounded and advanced the proposition that it was willful 
 waste to allow the rains and snows to form into streamlets, rush into rivers, 
 and bear out to the oceans the richest portion of the soil, often leaving ruin 
 in their course. He asserted that by a simple adaptation of the lands adja- 
 cent to the natural watersheds of the world, reservoirs of all sizes could 
 readily be obtained, in which the waters would accumulate and be conserved, 
 and from which, by an inexpensive system of sub-surface irrigation and 
 drainage, they might be released to moisten and feed the dry and hungry 
 earth. 
 
 Mr. Cole was the life-long friend and associate of Horace Greeley. 
 Together they worked out many problems for the amelioration of their 
 fellow men. 
 
12 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Mr. Cole alone has survived to witness the fulfillment of a dream that 
 promises to revolutionize all agriculture, horticulture, forest culture, fish 
 culture, manufacturing, mining, and inland navigation. 
 
 On his hillside farm at Wellsville he has already put his theory into 
 practice, so far as crops are concerned, and demonstrated the feasibility of 
 reserving a surplus of water from the wet seasons for use in times of drought. 
 He has lived to see the subject of aquaculture taken up, discussed, and ad- 
 vocated by the leading agricultural journals of the day. The Rural World, 
 published by United States Commissioner of Agriculture, Norman J. Colman, 
 has this to say of the old philosopher's wisdom and ingenuity : 
 
 " There are few sections of this vast country where water is not fur- 
 nished naturally by means of the rains or the snow, but their coming is 
 comparatively uncertain, and very often when most wanted, nay, when 
 absolutely essential to the production of a crop, they are not forthcoming. 
 Did the Creator ever intend that because he sends a surplus now it should 
 be permitted to go to waste simply because it is not for the moment 
 wanted ? " 
 
 We reprinted yesterday a most interesting article from the American 
 Angler which presents this great subject in all its most attractive lights to 
 farmers and kitchen gardeners. 
 
 We are aware that Mr. Cole has been associated with vast enterprises, 
 is a pioneer in great undertakings. We remember that he assisted in 
 putting the Republican party on its legs ; that he outlined our Central Park 
 and foreshadowed our systems of rapid transit ; but of all the work that a 
 keen mind, an unflagging industry, and an unfaltering faith can accomplish, 
 we submit that in thus understanding and defining the economies of nature's 
 water supply, he has proved himself to be one of the greatest benefactors 
 of the age. 
 
 As, amid countless achievements, the one of the New Agriculture is 
 that bound to live after him for all time, and the one to which this volume 
 is devoted, no sketch of his life would be other than the play of Hamlet 
 with the part of Hamlet omitted, which failed to make mention of the step 
 by step leading him to ultimate discoveiy and demonstration of his methods. 
 Before proceeding further, we will here say that, perhaps had the entire 
 world been gone over, no child of his age could have been found by the 
 time the subject of this sketch had reached the age of twelve, who had 
 looked more deeply down into that cycle of the waters embracing the 
 mysteries of evaporation, the formation of clouds, condensing of vapors into 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 13 
 
 rains and dews, their congelation at certain altitudes, precipitation of rain- 
 falls, the falling of snows, with like causes and effects, inclusive of the origin 
 of springs, and all that relates to the movement of waters on, along, and 
 beneath soils everywhere the world over. 
 
 Such was his rapt attention given to looking into the secrets of nature, 
 and such his constant reading of books, as to make him, whether at school, 
 at home, or among the people of the town, an object of interest. His foster 
 parents were devotedly attached to him, and did all in their power to aid 
 and encourage him in the acquisition of knowledge. 
 
 In nothing, however, did he seem in childhood to take a deeper interest 
 than in the one of parties, politics, public men, measures, etc. Educated 
 after the strictest sect a Democrat, or, more properly speaking, a Jeffersonian 
 and Jacksonian Republican, to propagate that sort of faith and shun federal- 
 ism as a heresy not to be tolerated, became early a passion. Reading the 
 Albany Argus and Evening Post weekly, the teachings and writings of 
 William Cullen Bryant, William Leggett, and others of more advanced 
 ideas of the times, made him fundamentally acquainted at an early age with 
 the sort of democracy found in the Declaration of Independence, and form- 
 ing, in fact, the foundation of the Republic. As for Federalists, Free Traders, 
 and born nullifiers, such as John C. Calhoun, Aaron Burr, and their kith and 
 kin, the boy at twelve was as antagonistic as the man of the present, nearing 
 that proverbial period of life allotted to man. So decided, indeed, has been 
 his democratic bias all along through life, and thus remains, he has never 
 been able to become aught else than a defiant fighter against the sort of 
 politics which calls for subordination of individual conscience to dictates of 
 caucus, cabal, or of star chamber emanations. Of his inborn and impulsive 
 radicalism, the reader may judge by a single incident occurring at the age 
 of thirteen, when, entering the village mill, and discovering a paper pinned 
 upon the wall with a few names appended to it, all of men of maturest years, 
 he read it, and finding it a pledge to abstain from the use of alcoholic drinks, 
 he at once added his name to the list, and hence his claim to being one of 
 the earliest among temperance men now living is well founded. Only a 
 year later, the foster father's health having given out, his business, that of 
 keeping a modest country store, had to be abandoned, and at about the age 
 of fifteen the lad bade adieu to school with its lessons, and to the best of his 
 ability set himself at work to settle up the business. To conclude that, at 
 this time, young Cole had mastered as much of science as perhaps any one 
 of his age in the county of Allegany, and was possessed of as large a fund 
 
14 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 of knowledge as any in the entire State, is at least a reasonable presumption, 
 since he had mastered Daboll's arithmetic, Woodbridge's geography, Mur- 
 ray's grammar, all of the common branches of the times, as they were 
 denominated, had done an amount of reading impossible to estimate, and 
 on quitting school, outside of his passion for trout fishing and making ex- 
 periments in growing plants, giving necessary attention to the settlement of 
 his foster father's business, knew no rest, but pushed on all the more vigor- 
 ously with his reading and study of books, making good beginning with 
 algebra, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, natural philosophy, geology, etc., 
 with the elements of which he became more or less familiar, and had made 
 some progress in Latin, when, having reached the age of sixteen, his foster 
 mother, finding herself under the necessity of breaking up housekeeping, he 
 contracted to teach a winter school in one of the most benighted districts of 
 Allegany County, comprising territory in the townships of Hume and Cana- 
 dea, in which was found settled a few estimable families, but the bulk of the 
 district made up of what were denominated at times "the lost nation," and 
 quite as commonly known as " swamp angels." There were between 
 twenty and thirty scholars in the school, their ages varying between ten and 
 twenty; the older ones, as a rule, being little less than barbarians. It only 
 required five weeks of endeavor to teach such a school before the big boys 
 and girls of the clay-bed district were masters of the situation, and the boy 
 schoolmaster found himself as frequently out as inside of the school-house. 
 Reluctantly, and yet from necessity, the stripling surrendered, and, return- 
 ing to the village of Hume, joined his foster-mother, the two securing board 
 at fifty cents per week each. The late teacher himself again became a 
 scholar in the village school, and at the close of that winter's term was suffi- 
 ciently advanced to give lessons not only to the hundred pupils attending 
 the school, but equally to his teacher, a roving Texan ranger, who, by 
 chance, coming that way, had taken the village school, which he succeeded 
 in teaching to conclusion, amid as much of fight and fury as possible to 
 imagine, the peace only kept, in the meantime, by surrendering the more 
 advanced classes to the tutorship of young Cole. 
 
 The early spring succeeding, while snow was yet on the ground un- 
 melted, the young man, having decided to try his fortunes in the West, left 
 Hume for Bloomfield, Ontario County, to visit friends before taking a packet 
 on the Erie Canal for Buffalo at opening of lake navigation. It was the 
 last of April when he crossed the gang-plank of the " Cleveland," at that 
 time one of the chiefest among lake steamers, and the first of May found 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 15 
 
 the young man in that city of Ohio bearing the name of the ship that car- 
 ried him safely. As he stepped upon the dock he found himself with barely 
 money sufficient to last three or four days by closest economy, and at once 
 sought for some sort of work to do which would give a living, however 
 scanty, and this he found by contracting to keep in order the editorial 
 rooms of the Cleveland Intelligencer, a daily and weekly, published by 
 Benjamin F. Andrews, postmaster of a town at that time containing only 
 about six thousand population, with an area, inclusive of suburbs, so ex- 
 tended that to estimate the ground covered by the young city would make 
 it incredible with every reader when we add that, to his duties in keeping 
 the editors rooms in order, were added those of carrier to the doors of city 
 subscribers. His compensation for this work was merely nominal, and by 
 the first of June, the cholera having broken out, the young man, exhausted 
 with overwork and no pay in fact, having been offered an agency to can- 
 vass for a modest little monthly, the Buckeye Ploughboy, subscription price 
 fifty cents a year, with commission of twenty-five per cent, accepted with 
 alacrity, and, from the hour of doing so, set out on that race which has been 
 one of undeviating progress for a period of a full half century, having few 
 parallels in American life. This has not been in the accumulation of 
 wealth, since he has seen much of stringency in money matters much of 
 embarrassment, in fact ; and, though he has made, possibly, more money 
 during that fifty years which has been absorbed by the rich and powerful, 
 profiting by his work, than any other American, he has himself, up to this 
 time, comparatively little to show of earthly possessions, and yet has lived 
 all the while since the autumn succeeding that never-to-be-forgotten sum- 
 mer of 1838 in comfort, blessed with goods which come of an abundance 
 of all required for the wants of man. 
 
 Many a time has the author of this sketch listened to the accounts 
 given by his father of his experience, traveling on foot hundreds, not to say 
 thousands, of miles over the Buckeye State, adding several hundred names 
 to the subscription list of one of the earliest among agricultural and horti- 
 cultural journals of the then West, since Ohio was reckoned in those days 
 central among States of the West. Since the settlement of our country no 
 season has proved more disastrous to crops than the one in Ohio of 1838, 
 coming of a drought so unparalleled that, at time of potato-digging in Octo- 
 ber, the tubers only averaged, as a rule, from the size of a walnut to that of 
 the butternut, nor were of value outside of seed for the ensuing year. 
 
 Fruit was abundant, more especially peaches, which rotted upon the 
 
1 6 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 ground all over the State. Wheat matured early, and proved a crop from 
 fair to middling ; while corn was, as a rule, a failure. So early as July first, 
 such was the universality and severity of the drought, that the springs nearly 
 all disappeared ; the creeks, brooks, and rivulets became dry in their beds, 
 and great rivers shrank to comparative nothingness in volume. It was said 
 of the Sandusky River that it was to be discovered only in detached pools? 
 and so thick did the scum form on the surface ot these as to enable the 
 squirrels to cross them in droves, as upon a bridge. There were but few 
 wells in the State at that period, and these were generally dry from July till 
 November. Cattle and sheep died by thousands for want of water ; the 
 swamps were made little else than burning bogs of peat and tinder ; nearly 
 all of their timber destroyed by fire. It was shinplaster days ; no bank bills 
 worth the mention ; and no metallic currency at all in circulation. The 
 only subscriber to the Plonghboy paying for it in silver was none other than 
 the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, who, alongside of Ben. Wade, was found in 
 their law office at Jefferson, Ashtabula County; and here began an acquaint- 
 ance proving of incalculable value to the then still stripling now a veteran 
 crowned with locks as white as snow. "Whence come you, my boy?" asked 
 Giddings. " From Western New York, Allegany County," was the canvass- 
 er's reply. " Of New England parentage, I venture to say ?" continued his 
 interlocutor. At this the young man, never averse to speaking of his ances- 
 try, spoke of the Coles, of Cole's Hill, Plymouth, and pointed back to his 
 mother as a descendant in direct line from Roger Williams. This was suffi- 
 cient. It was Saturday afternoon, and the " Old War-horse of the Western 
 Reserve " invited the canvasser to spend Sunday with him. This invi- 
 tation was joyously accepted, and when, on Monday morning, he made his 
 departure, it was with a head full of new ideas, and a heart more than ever 
 before upwelling with love of liberty. It was only June at this time, and, 
 before the season was over, the young man at times made his bed in the 
 fields, alongside of the shocks of wheat and corn ; and, while making his 
 evening and morning meal of fruit and raw wheat, shelled out and eaten 
 with his then young and firm teeth, he was put impressively in mind of 
 the brief stay made at the house of Giddings, who, later in 1853, came 
 down to Western New York and joined his early disciple in pushing that 
 crusade for freedom and equal rights resulting in the greatest moral, 
 social, religious, and political revolution in the annals of time. Only a few- 
 days after leaving the home of Giddings the fearful drought began of 
 which we have made mention. It was during its prevalence that the lad 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 17 
 
 began looking more deeply than ever into the origin of springs, rivulets, 
 rivers, and lakes, and in contemplating the devastations wrought by the 
 drought, began mentally inquiring whether it was not possible to save and 
 store the rains of spring, summer, and autumn, as well as the melting 
 snows of winter doing, in fact, what he has done and demonstrated since 
 by his methods of aquaculture, the new agriculture, or sub-irrigation 
 more properly speaking, subsoil irrigation. That at eighteen years of age 
 he had gotten more than an inkling of his after- discoveries well fixed in 
 his mind, let no reader for a moment doubt, since that mention of Chinese 
 agriculture found in a geography, published several years before he was 
 born, was a something borne constantly in mind and studied upon, and 
 had opened to him vistas of a future at last reaching out over all of the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 The close of September found the young man at the home of an un- 
 cle, Nathan Cole, in Republic, Seneca County, and here it was arranged 
 for a winter school, the teaching of which for four months, at twelve dol- 
 lars per month, laid the foundation of future and undeviating success. 
 His patrons and pupils were nearly all Germans, " Pennsylvania Dutch," 
 as denominated, and few could speak, and none among them worth the 
 mention could read, English at all. It was, in fact, the first English 
 school taught in the district, and the young teacher left his charge at end 
 of his term with the good-will and followed by the blessings of parents 
 and children, making his way to Michigan, at that time just emerging 
 from the wilderness and putting on the vestures of Statehood. A severe 
 attack of bilious fever, succeeded by ague and fever, followed immediately 
 after reaching Michigan, and necessitated earliest possible resumption of 
 work, when the first of June, 1839, found the young man teaching a sum- 
 mer school at Northville, Plymouth County, at two dollars per week, 
 boarding round. On reaching Northville the first object specially attract- 
 ing his attention was that phenomenal flood of pure spring water, putting 
 him in mind of the springs at Caledonia, Livingston County, N. Y. On 
 these wonderful springs are at present located the principal hatching and 
 breeding ponds of the United States Government, and it was this remark- 
 able outgushing of pure spring water at sources of the Rouge River, that 
 gave to the place the repute of being the healthiest in Michigan, attract- 
 ing to it parties seeking to avoid malarial influences so generally prevail- 
 ing in most portions of the West of those days. Whence came these 
 great fountains? was the first question arising in the mind of him who 
 
1 8 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 seemed so born to the following after the waters that the passion would 
 somehow never down. The young man was not long in making up his 
 mind whence came, and from what conditions sprang, the wonderful 
 springs. Less than a month after beginning his school, among others 
 seeking to find a healthful spot in which to spend the summer, was M. 
 Theodore Lupien, a young Frenchman of eminent family, accomplished 
 in manner, and having much of learning acquired in best of schools. Only 
 a few words of English could he speak, and, placing himself under the 
 tutorship of the young teacher, with a proposal to make a Frenchman of 
 Cole, while Cole in turn was to make an American of Lupien, as regarded 
 language, at least. The work of education went on. We had omitted to 
 mention the fact that in teaching among the Germans of Ohio, the pre- 
 ceding winter, the schoolmaster had gathered the fundamentals of the 
 language of the Fatherland, and this, added to rudiments of Latin, helped 
 him on with the French, and a month had scarcely passed before the 
 teacher of that summer school, then about eighteen years of age, would 
 have proven a creditable professor of the French language in most Amer- 
 ican schools of the times. Not so with his pupil, however, who made but 
 slow and tedious progress in learning to read and speak English. 
 
 At close of his four months' term of school A. N. Cole left Michigan 
 for return to the land of his birth, reaching Allegany and Wyoming coun- 
 ties in the month of September, 1839. Professor Davis W. Smith, of 
 Castile, Wyoming County, having acquired an enviable reputation as a 
 teacher, young Cole at once availed himself of the opportunity of study at 
 his school, and though there was in the school a considerable number of 
 scholars well advanced in learning, years older, in most instances, than 
 Cole, the latter, as usual, took the lead, attracting general attention as a 
 student of rare promise. Among others attending the school were a son 
 and daughter of Professor Joseph Wildman, principal of the first High 
 School at Poughkeepsie. The family of Professor Wildman was one to 
 which the subject of this sketch found early attraction, and here it was 
 that, a few months later, the young man found the home to which his 
 heart to the present hour turns back as one of love and beauty having 
 few equals anywhere. Here, at the age of two-and-twenty, he was wedded 
 to Margaret Malvina Wildman, and never was union more perfect, and 
 never did the lives of any couple move more even and happily on. The 
 fruit of this union was four children, three sons and a daughter, still living,, 
 though their mother left this world for Paradise, March 22d, 1880. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 19, 
 
 It was Joshua R. Giddings who, in the summer of 1838, suggested to 
 the subject of this sketch the name of Horace Greeley as the one thus 
 early giving evidence of becoming a second Dr. Ben. Franklin, and ad- 
 vised the lad to form his acquaintance. This advice was taken, and Cole 
 wrote his first letters to Greeley in 1839 or '40, while the latter was pub- 
 lishing the New Yorker. These letters were cordially received by the 
 now everywhere admitted greatest among journalists of any age or country. 
 The letters dwelt mainly on subjects of social and political reforms, the 
 theories of " Fourier," "Brisbane," and others of their ways of thinking.. 
 In the meantime, both Greeley and Cole had become thorougly imbued 
 with the teachings of M. Francois, Pierre Guillaume Guizot, whose phi- 
 losophies were reflected by his renowned society, claimed by many to 
 have a beginning so early in the ages to make it impossible to trace its 
 origin, or fix the date of its first appearance, and yet here is what has been 
 said of it as matter of history. The name of the society was "Aide toi et 
 le del T^aidera" signifying, "Heaven will help those who help them- 
 selves." 
 
 This was the motto of a political society having for its object the attain- 
 ment of ends best defined by a common platform now occupied in sub- 
 stance by the Grange, as well as by the farmers, foresters, fish culturists, 
 and other industrial classes in alliance, seeking such reforms in govern- 
 ments everywhere as embodied in the following general declaration of 
 principles : 
 
 Profoundly impressed that we, the farmers of America, who are united 
 by the strong and faithful ties of financial and home interests, should, 
 when organized into an association, set forth our declarations of inten- 
 tions ; we therefore resolve, 
 
 1. To labor for the education of the agricultural classes in the science 
 of economic government in a strictly non-partisan spirit, and to bring, 
 about a more perfect union of said classes. 
 
 2. That we demand equal rights to all and special favors to none. 
 
 3. That we return to the old principle of letting the office seek the 
 man, instead of the man seeking the office. 
 
 4. To indorse the motto, " In things essential unity, and in all things 
 charity." 
 
 5. To develop a better state mentally, morally, socially and finan- 
 cially. 
 
20 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 6. To create a better understanding for sustaining our civil officers 
 in maintaining law and order. 
 
 7. To constantly strive to secure entire harmony and good will to 
 all mankind, and brotherly love among ourselves. 
 
 8. To suppress personal, local, sectional, and national prejudices, all 
 unhealthful rh airy, and selfish ambition. 
 
 9. The brightest jewels which it garners are the tears of widows and 
 orphans, and its imperative commands are to visit the homes where lacer- 
 ated hearts are bleeding ; to assuage the sufferings of a brother or sister ; 
 bury the dead ; care for the widows and educate the orphans ; to exercise 
 charity toward offenders; to construe words and deeds in their most 
 favorable light ; granting honesty of purpose and good intentions to others, 
 and to protect the principles of the National Farmers' Alliance and Co- 
 operative Union until death. Its laws are reason and equity ; its cardinal 
 doctrines inspire purity of thought and life ; its intention is, " Peace on 
 earth, good will toward men." 
 
 At the opening of this sketch occurs the introductory on the part of 
 Colman's Rural World, which we now supplement by the following from 
 the same source : 
 
 Mr. Cole commenced life in the second quarter of the present cen- 
 tury, a time which is remembered as producing many of the greatest men 
 that have figured in the history of this country, and he has been of them a 
 part, their daily associate and correspondent, and a co-worker with them 
 in making history and the nation's greatness. With a memory of extra- 
 ordinary retentiveness, and a more than ordinarily active and vigorous 
 mind, he naturally retains all of the past, and when the occasion requires, 
 pours it forth in a volley and volume which, for force and fervor, is 
 seldom equalled. He reminds one, indeed, of his old and life-long 
 friend, Horace Greeley, for neither his tongue or pen are capable of idle- 
 ness, not even when asleep ; indeed, we never met so prolific a writer or 
 one having greater facility of expression. 
 
 " This, then, is the author of the * The New Agriculture, or The 
 Waters Led Cap^tive,' by whose genius and indomitable perseverance 
 we believe the desert is to be made to blossom as the rose, the fruit and 
 vegetable gardens to produce three or four times the quantity and two 
 or three times the size heretofore known, and the waters to be so saved 
 and held as that drouths shall be unknown as long as rains fall or rivers 
 run. We have heretofore expressed the opinion that there was no 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 21 
 
 more sense in permitting a waste of waters when they came as one of 
 nature's largest and best gifts to man, than in allowing the crop of corn 
 or wheat, of fruit or vegetables, to rot whert they grew. We are of that 
 opinion still. And whilst we read of the many advances in science and 
 scientific commerce, in art and literature, in education and morals of the 
 Victorean era; whilst we enumerate the wonders of steam, of electricity, 
 the printing press, and of agricultural and commercial progress of the 
 past fifty years, we look to the remaining years of the century to per- 
 fect this still more magnificent, this grandest of all enterprises, the 
 new agriculture, or the waters held captive. 
 
 " Six years ago Mr. Cole's neighbors were astonished by the growth 
 of fruits and vegetables of marvelous size r beauty, profusion and per- 
 fection on the heretofore barren and rocky hillside of his suburban 
 home. He was understood at first as making experiments in under- 
 drainage ; nor did his nearest neighbors and most intimate friends have 
 any intelligent conception of the methods under which he was proceed- 
 ing those of the sub-surface, subterranean or underground irrigation 
 but he brought that rocky hillside into such a state of fertility that 
 finer fruits and vegetables than were ever seen, and in greater profusion,, 
 were produced therefrom ; then and not till then did he patent the sys- 
 tem, and give to the world the grandest idea that man in agriculture ever 
 conceived. In' thus writing we are conscious of the fact that many other- 
 wise excellent men and able writers have both ridiculed the system and 
 villified the man, but he will live to see them take it all back and acknowl- 
 edge that he is not only right, but the benefactor of his age and people." 
 
 As politics and parties should have nothing in fact to do, as such, 
 with ways and means by which the industrial classes are to find their 
 way up and out into conditions of universal thrift and prosperity, what 
 we have said touching the society of Guizot should be accepted there- 
 fore as best of reasons why in a political sense no further mention be 
 made of Mr. Cole's identification therewith. 
 
 This book is devoted to the New Agriculture, the fundamentals of 
 which are best bought out in a letter of Dr. John Swinburn found on its 
 pages. This is the water feature whereby towns, cities, all portions of 
 the world, indeed, are to be supplied with an abundance of pure spring 
 water. It is the Croton water-shed pointed out in conclusion by the 
 pen of General Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun, appearing at 
 date of November i4th, 1888. 
 
22 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 Now is the time for the Vanderbilts, or any other set of enlightened 
 millionaires, to come forward and undertake here in this neighborhood 
 an experiment whose successful working would confer upon the human 
 family a greater benefit than any novelty or invention or discovery since 
 the introduction of printing. 
 
 We refer, of course, to the New Agriculture, the great system of 
 subterraneous irrigation, of feeding the roots of plants from beneath 
 with a perpetual supply of moisture. This system was discovered by 
 that irrepressible, electrical veteran, Asahel Nichols Cole of Allegany 
 County, and the right place to make a conspicuous and triumphant dis- 
 play of its marvellous results is here at the doors of this metropolis, 
 among the hills of Westchester. The land is there, its long slopes turn- 
 ing to the southern sun ; the living springs of water are there ; the 
 climate is favorable, the situation peerless, and all that is necessary is 
 that some great and far-seeing man, with as much money as he has brains, 
 should devote a little thereof to a work whose success will not merely 
 make its capitalist glorious and famous, but also increase his wealth 
 beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. No matter how many millions 
 he may have already, the New Agriculture would add to his store, and, 
 in addition, the blessings of the human family, the cry of joy from pover- 
 ty relieved, the shout of hope from hearts that dread and doubt, would be 
 given to him in full measure and exulting chorus. 
 
 What wise millionaire, what rich and great philanthropist, desirous 
 of being the benefactor of the human race, of putting an end to hunger 
 and poverty, will come forward and lay hold of this unexampled oppor- 
 tunity to gain for himself imperishable renown, and to confer upon his 
 grateful countrymen the benefits of universal prosperity and boundless 
 abundance ? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Water a Necessity for Vegetation. 
 
 Years ago, when a large portion of the country was covered with 
 forest, falling leaves, decaying woods and other vegetation protected the 
 soil making it porous and light, with power to absorb and hold the rain- 
 fall almost in its entirety. Floods and freshets were prevented, springs 
 and streams gave a full and steady flow, while the rain-fall was more abund- 
 ant and regular. Soil then, when cleared for crops, filled with decay- 
 ing remains of the removed woods, readily took up and held for a longer 
 time the waters which fell upon it, and drew also upon the surplus mois- 
 ture contained in the forest lands adjoining or surrounding it. Then crops 
 had a constant supply of water, and yield was far in excess of later years, 
 and of superior quality. The forests have been removed ; their rain-ab- 
 sorbing soil has given place in large part to pasture and meadow lands, 
 with their compact surface and almost water proof mat of roots. These 
 lands have the power and capacity to absorb but a very small percentage 
 of the falling rain, and it is lost to crop and soil in wash and flood. 
 Springs have failed ; streams have lost their volume in large part if not 
 wholly during the heat of summer ; evaporation from them being shut oft, 
 and that from the soil increased. The annual rain-fall has steadily de- 
 creased, drying winds circulate more freely and largely, drouth becomes 
 more frequent, severe, and extended. Every farmer in the majority of 
 years feels that some at least of his crops would be greatly benefited by 
 an increased supply of water during the growing season. 
 
 Market gardeners and fruit growers, whose crops should on the aver- 
 age reach in value several hundred dollars per acre annually, experience 
 large losses which might be avoided were a supply of water at all times 
 available. Not only is the average yield of crops growing less yearly, 
 even in favorable seasons, but drouth is becoming so general that crops 
 suffer and are in whole, or large part, destroyed about once in three years. 
 
 Every tiller of the soil knows that water is indispensable to the 
 growth of his crops, and if it is not supplied, the crop correspondingly 
 suffers. 
 
24 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 There are some facts, however, touching vegetable growth which are 
 not generally known, but should be understood by every cultivator of 
 lands. Henry Stewart in his book, "Irrigation for Farm, Garden and Or- 
 chard," states them in the following plain and direct manner. " No water, 
 whether it be in the state of liquid or vapor, can enter into any part of a 
 plant other than its roots. The common idea that water or watery vapor 
 is ever absorbed through the leaves of a plant is unfounded. The solid 
 portion of the plant consists of matter which enters into it only while in 
 solution in water. Water is the vehicle by which the solid part of a 
 plant is cairied into its circulation for assimilation. If water is not ade- 
 quately supplied, an insufficient quantity of nutriment only will be carried 
 into the circulation of the plant, and its growth will be stunted or arrested 
 altogether. 
 
 Growing plants contain from 70 to 95 per cent, of water. To the 
 extent that water supplies this necessary constituent of a growing plant, 
 it is an actual nutriment. 
 
 The quantity of water that must pass through the roots of a plant of 
 our ordinary farm crops, and to be transpired through the leaves, to carry 
 it from germination to maturity, is equal to the depth of twelve inches 
 over the whole soil covered by the crop. This is the requirements of an 
 average crop upon a moderately well-cultivated soil. If the crop is 
 stimulated to extraordinary growth by large applications of manure or 
 other fertilizers, a still greater supply of water is needed to meet the de- 
 mands of the crop." 
 
 These facts so plainly stated show the most potent factor in the pro- 
 duction of crops to be soil moisture. The presence of water renders plant 
 growth possible, as under the proper conditions it renders soil fertility 
 available to the plant and insures full development in growth. Under 
 old and present methods of farming and gardening this moisture is not 
 supplied. The rains of fall, winter and early spring come at times when 
 crops derive but little if any benefit from them. The rain-falls which 
 occur between seed time and harvest are not only generally short of the 
 required amount, but the evaporation of the growing season exceeds the 
 rain-fall, and after having absorbed that, takes from soil and crop the 
 little moisture left from the rains of winter and spring. This being ex- 
 hausted, crops not only thirst but starve. 
 
 So important has become this matter of soil moisture, and so inade- 
 quate the supply for the summer months, that the practical farmers of 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 25 
 
 this State who are in charge of the State Agricultural Experiment 
 Station, declare in their Report of 1887, that " to control the water of the 
 soil, even to some extent, is to the farmer a matter of great conse- 
 quence." Agricultural papers, writers, and speakers are agitating the 
 subject and urging a change of present methods. Most emphatic of 
 these utterances are those of Colonel H. W. Wilson, in a recent address 
 before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, as follows: "About 
 50,000 gallons of water are ordinarily required to give an acre of land a 
 proper saturation, and no irrigation can be at all satisfactory which 
 attempts to do any less. As the gardener has often observed, both in 
 the green house and in the garden, a slight watering often proves only 
 an aggravation, and benefit is derived from a thorough drenching; so 
 in our climate, with ordinary soils such as are found to be advantageously 
 cultivated, it will require about two inches in depth, over the entire sur- 
 face, to make a useful irrigation of almost any crop. This, with what will 
 be lost by leakage and evaporation, will amount to 50,000 gallons. For 
 vegetables and small fruits the value of water would be greatly increased 
 in dry years, while for strawberries the benefit would be greater than any- 
 thing of which cultivators have hitherto dreamed. Drouth is the constant 
 dread of the strawberry grower, as the strawberry is a thirsty plant and 
 seldom gets water enough." 
 
 Irrigated lands are lands that always produce large crops, regard- 
 less of the seasons or rains. It is a mistake to suppose that irrigation is 
 only suitable or profitable in regions devoid of rain. While an absolute 
 necessity in arid regions, it is a great help to successful agriculture in 
 every section of the earth. The farmer who resorts to irrigation and 
 drainage is always certain of a large yield ; he loses no seed, labor, or 
 crop by dry or wet seasons. Crops grown under these circumstances are 
 always harvested in good condition and are of superior quality, conse- 
 quently bring higher prices. 
 
 The following, from the Drainage and Farm Journal, published at 
 Indianapolis, Ind., by J. J. W. Billingsley, is so pertinent to the question 
 of the necessity for an ample water supply we make quotation therefrom : 
 
 " There was little call for considering the need of irrigation when the 
 soil was fresh from the covering of the leafy mold. Then it readily 
 retained moisture. The greater difficulty was to free the soil from ex- 
 cesses of moisture. Subsequent cultivation has changed the mechanical 
 condition of the soil, and the removal of the forest timber has exposed 
 
26 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 the surface to the drying winds, until drouths are more frequent and the 
 effects are oft-times disastrous to the growing crops. 
 
 Farmers have been casting about for a remedy, and it has been 
 found largely in the underdrainage of the soil to a sufficient depth to 
 remove from the soil spaces the excess of water, retaining only the water 
 of moisture, promoting the capillary flow of moisture to the surface from 
 greater depths in the soil, and the condensation of moisture from the 
 atmosphere in its circulation through the soil and subsoil. But the hus- 
 bandman finds that there is still a greater amount of moisture needed to 
 promote the growth and largest productiveness of some crops than is 
 supplied by underdrainage, or tile drainage, as it is commonly called ; 
 which is especially true in market gardening, where the value of the crop 
 often aggregates, or should aggregate, several hundred dollars per acre. 
 To fall below a remunerative yield is disastrous. The soil may be under- 
 drained, manured and brought to the desired fineness in the division of 
 the particles, but the extra supply of water must be provided for the extra 
 yield required to make the business pay. 
 
 To do this, many devices have been brought into use to provide the 
 needed extra supply of water. Trenches or canals have been dug miles 
 in length to convey the water to the point where it is needed, then lateral 
 surface trenches convey it to the area of land to be irrigated, spreading it 
 out into smaller and still smaller temporary trenches, until the supply is 
 made as uniform as the amount of water, time, and labor required will 
 allow. 
 
 Wells have been dug and the water pumped into trenches to be dis- 
 tributed to various parts of the ground. Engines have done the work of 
 pumping the water into tanks built upon elevated frame-work, and the 
 water drawn off to irrigate the soil by means of pipes, hose, lead troughs, 
 etc. Others have tried the sprinklers drawn by horse-power, and men 
 have tried the hand sprinkler, but it is expensive, and most frequently not 
 up to the measure of effectiveness desired. 
 
 How frequently it occurs that the labor of years may depend for its 
 desired remuneration upon the supply of moisture that is furnished to 
 growing and maturing crops in the short period of ten days. If the sup- 
 ply of water from rainfalls is cut off for that length of time when the crop 
 is maturing the loss may prove ruinous. The question of the hour with 
 the market gardener and small fruit grower is, how shall this supply be 
 provided for certainly?" 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 27 
 
 This question of a uniform and adequate water supply is not alone a 
 question of importance to the individual land-owner, but also of State 
 and Nation, and as such is receiving at the hands of the leading men and 
 public journals of the day the consideration its importance entitles it to. 
 In the N. Y. Tribune, date June 23d, appeared the following: 
 
 "PROPOSED MOUNTAIN RESERVOIRS. 
 
 The rapidity with which in this age of occupation and excitement 
 even the deepest impressions are effaced is strikingly exemplified in the 
 fact that though scores of bodies are still mouldering beneath the unex- 
 plored ruins of Johnstown, the great disaster has faded out of public 
 attention. While the horror was still fresh there was an eager desire to 
 learn if other dams were ready to give way before an extra pressure, and 
 the demand for investigation and prompt precautions against similar 
 catastrophes was universal. But already the search and the discussion 
 have been practically abandoned. 
 
 These observations are suggested by an article in the current number 
 of Garden and Forest, upon the vast scheme of mountain reservoirs pro- 
 posed by the Director of the Geological Survey as a means of irrigating 
 the dry plains beneath them. There is little doubt that engineering skill 
 is competent to carry out the plans of Major Powell, and that a great ter- 
 ritory can be rendered fruitful through the accumulation and distribution 
 of water which otherwise would be largely wasted ; but there are serious 
 objections which ought at least to be considered far more attentively than 
 they yet have been before the Government goes further in the direction 
 of committing itself to this project. As Garden and Forest suggests, 
 there is something to be said in favor of the decrees and processes of 
 Nature as opposed to the impatient purposes of man, but we are not de- 
 sirous now to dispute the immediate utility of the plan for making the 
 desert blossom. The question of safety is of the first importance. As 
 The Tribune remarked directly after the Conemaugh disaster, and as 
 Garden and Forest now urges, the chief element of danger in an elevated 
 lake artificially formed lies in the difficulty of maintenance, not of original 
 construction. Secret and obscure agents of destruction are constantly 
 endeavoring to undermine the strongest fabric, and the obstacles to an 
 adequate determination of their success or failure are practically insuper- 
 able. But aside from this constant menace, sudden and irresistible forces 
 may be developed at any moment. Our contemporary points out that an 
 
28 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 earthquake so slight as to be otherwise harmless might make a breach in 
 one of these dams through which the sea of water behind it would pour out 
 in an instant, and it furthermore supplies this most suggestive illustration 
 of what might follow the proposed cutting away of the mountain forests: 
 'The Ardeche is a small mountain stream in France, and yet the sudden 
 melting of the snows in the deep valleys at its sources so swelled its cur- 
 rent that it once delivered i, 305,000^,000 cubic yards of water into the 
 Rhone in three days. For this short period it flowed with a volume like 
 the Nile, and what reservoir could be trusted to restrain an outpouring of 
 this sort ? ' 
 
 These are considerations which ought not to be lightly dismissed. 
 We are far from failing to appreciate the beneficent transformation which 
 might reasonably be expected to result from an artificial distribution of 
 moisture on the arid land which Major Powell designs to fructify, but we 
 do insist that several momentous arguments against his plan ought to be 
 satisfactorily answered before the first step is taken toward putting it into 
 practical operation." 
 
 An even distribution of moisture over the arid lands would not only 
 cause them to blossom, but would by even and extended evaporation 
 cause cloud formation and rain-fall. In this book will be described a 
 system which will receive, store and distribute the waters of the mountain 
 streams fed by melting snows of mountains, snow-clad during a part or 
 the whole of the year. Not only will it store the waters unattended by 
 the dangers of the plan spoken of in the above quoted article, but it has 
 the advantage of immediate distribution, and that beneath the surface 
 where it will do the greatest amount of good, and be much less subject 
 to rapid evaporation. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Drainage. 
 
 If with a system of irrigation a proper system of drainage be also 
 combined, the tiller of the soil will remove two adverse influences against 
 which he now contends. Water is a good servant but a bad master. 
 To make it our servant, not only must be it supplied in sufficient quanti- 
 ties, but it must be supplied in such a way as to perfectly control its 
 effects upon soil and crop. 
 
 Stagnant water upon or near the soil's surface, works injury in many 
 ways. It prevents early working and seeding, remains cold and be- 
 comes sour, generally destroying the seed of crops put upon the ground, 
 or drowns out and rots the root of any which may chance to start. 
 With the coming of hot weather, baking of the surface follows, cracks and 
 fissures in the soil admit the burning rays of the sun and the heated air, 
 and partial, if not total, destruction of the crop is the result. 
 
 Drain, and the stagnant water is carried off, the texture of the soil 
 improved by being made more porous, drier, looser, and more friable 
 and light ; air and the rain-fall are more perfectly absorbed, and the soil 
 made ready for tillage some weeks earlier by soil heat. Still farther we 
 quote from the Drainage and Farm Journal. 
 
 " The amount of heat in the soil is a matter of the highest impor- 
 tance to the farmer. The reader need not be told that it has a great 
 influence upon the germination of seeds and the growth of plants. A 
 certain amount of heat in the soil is essential to germination and 
 growth. A certain amount of heat is also essential to the decomposition 
 of carbonic acid by plants. Indian corn will not decompose carbonic 
 acid at a temperature lower than about fifty-nine degrees. If the tem- 
 perature of the soil can be raised, plants will grow faster. Our farm 
 crops may wither in midsummer; but this is not because the soil is too 
 warm, but because there is a lack of moisture in it, or, what is oftener 
 the cause, the atmosphere is so dry that the moisture is exhaled too rapid- 
 ly from the plant. It would be very advantageous to increase the 
 
30 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 warmth of the soil in the spring, for by so doing we could get plants 
 started several days earlier, and their growth would be more rapid. In 
 the North, especially, the seasons are too short for many plants; and 
 even those which mature well enough would make a heavier yield if 
 started earlier and forced along for the first few weeks by a warmer soil. 
 
 Drained soils are warmer than undrained ones, because much of the 
 water which passes through them would otherwise be evaporated ; and 
 this evaporation, it must be remembered, requires enough heat to make 
 the water into vapor. The amount of heat thus used is quite large. It 
 is likely equal to that produced by burning two-thirds of a ton of coal per 
 day for each acre on an average throughout the year. If this heat were 
 not absorbed by the water, it would be largely absorbed by the soil, if 
 all of it were not. The specific heat of water is greater than that of the 
 soil five times as great as humus, seven times as great as loam, eight 
 times as great as clay, and ten times as great as sand. Hence, more 
 heat is required to warm up a certain weight of water than to raise 
 the same weight of soil to the same temperature. As drains remove an 
 excess of water in the soil, in the spring at least, it would remove water 
 that otherwise would take heat from the earth. More than this, water is 
 a very poor conductor of heat, and when the soil is wet, as in the spring, 
 the heat will penetrate much more slowly than if the water were removed. 
 In Prussia it has been officially determined that on an average the snow 
 there melts a week earlier on drained than on undrained land ; and the 
 difference would not be less in this country. A difference of ten to fif- 
 teen degrees in the temperature of drained and undrained soils has fre- 
 quently been noticed ; and the constantly higher temperature of drained 
 soils is doubtless responsible for much of the larger growths upon them." 
 
 Many good points have and can be given in favor of under-drainage. 
 Of these the following three, by Professor R. T. Brown, are among the 
 strongest we have seen : 
 
 " i st. A clay soil finely pulverized and throughly dried will hold 
 from 80 to 100 per cent, of its weight in water before the same will drip 
 from it. This water of sub-saturation, known in common language as 
 the moisture of the soil, cannot be reduced by drainage, it can be re- 
 moved only by evaporation. But at this point the water is adhering to 
 the particles of clay, and the interspaces between the particles of clay are, 
 or should be, filled with air. This is a condition of the first importance 
 in regard to the fertility of the soil. But in a state of saturation these 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 31 
 
 interspaces are filled with water, and of course the air is excluded. Now, 
 as this water of saturation can penetrate the subsoil but slowly, if at all, 
 it must be removed by evaporation from the surface. But as the surface 
 dries, the water from below rises by capillary attraction to fill the place 
 of that removed, and this leaves a partial vacuum, as no air can enter 
 from below to fill the space of the displaced water. The consequence 
 is that the softened particles of clay are drawn together, and by cohesion 
 the clay becomes a solid mass. Of course, the interspaces thus oblite- 
 rated diminish the volume of the clay, and this is manifested by the 
 gaping cracks that show themselves in the clay, dried by surface evapora- 
 tion. These cracks measure the amount of consolidation in the drying- 
 clay. Now if the water can escape below, the air follows the descending 
 water and fills the pores of the clay as the water vacates them, and con- 
 sequently there is no consolidation of the clay. The admission of air 
 from above is an important factor in the beneficent influence of tile 
 drainage. 
 
 2nd. This free ventilation of the soil is the secret of the effect of 
 tiling in time of drouth. A finely pulverized soil has a power of condens- 
 ing moisture from the atmosphere that circulates freely through it. This 
 can be readily demonstrated by experiment. Take about five pounds of 
 good soil, well dried and finely pulverized put it into a small basket 
 after carefully weighing it and expose it in some unsheltered place, on a 
 clear summer night. Weigh it again in the morning, and perhaps you 
 will be surprised to find that the five pounds of soil has gained from 
 one to two ounces in weight from the water absorbed. That is ap- 
 parently a small gain, but when we apply the ratio to the area of an acre 
 of fine soil a foot in depth, it will amount to barrels of water. The 
 capacity of air to hold moisture is measured by its temperature. Of a 
 clear night the earth loses heat by radiation very rapidly, and the air 
 entering it, whether from above or below, is soon reduced to the tempera- 
 ture of soil, and of course deposits the water it was able to hold at a 
 higher temperature, on the same principle that dew is deposited on grass 
 when it is cooled by radiation of heat. At the depth of three feet or 
 more this deposition of moisture is chiefly in the day time, as at that 
 depth surface radiation of heat has but little effect. If the clay is ren- 
 dered porous by a system of through drainage, the air will penetrate it 
 from every direction, and whenever the earth's temperature falls below 
 the temperature of the air, water will be deposited if the air is saturated. 
 
32 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 There has been much speculation on this subject, but theories apart, 
 every farmer knows that in a drought the hard road side will dry to a 
 greater depth than the adjacent cornfield that he is cultivating. Last 
 year's drought demonstrated that properly tiled grounds produce fair 
 crops, while on undrained clay land the crop was nearly a total failure. 
 
 3rd. There is another advantage in drainage that is of prime import- 
 ance, though it is generally overlooked. The fineness of the particles 
 composing a soil is an important element of fertility. The fertility of 
 bottom land, especially that which has been deposited from back-water, 
 depends chiefly on its extreme fineness. Now, in a cultivated field, where 
 the water which falls on it is carried away by surface drainage, either with 
 or without open ditches, it is always muddy indeed, loaded with the fine 
 particles of soil held in suspension. If that water had been filtered into 
 an under drain it would have been as clear as a^mountain spring." 
 
 If we stand by the roadside, or by open ditch, in time of a freshet, we 
 see the torrent of muddy water carrying to the streams and lowlands tons 
 of the best part of the soil. 
 
 How long can lands endure this waste and not lose their vitality, be- 
 coming what is known as worn-out lands ? 
 
 Other, though perhaps lesser, benefits follow drainage, and have not 
 only made it desirable but profitable. Among the benefits above re- 
 ferred to, and the first in importance, is that of lightening up the soil ; a 
 condition which allows it to absorb more moisture in times of heavy rain- 
 falls than the more compact soils of under-drained lands would do. To 
 the extent this is done, drainage is desirable ; but with this small benefit, 
 a large and serious loss to soil and crop is entailed by the drains imme- 
 diately carrying from off and out of the lands all the water of the fall and 
 spring rains and the melting snows of winter, over and above the small 
 percentage held in the soil. Not alone is the surplus water lost, but it, 
 in its course down through and away from the land, carries with it ele- 
 ments of fertilization natural to the soil, or contained in the rains and melt- 
 ing snows, as well a.s a large, and the most valuable parts and elements of 
 the manures and fertilizers applied to the lands by the tiller. These escap- 
 ing waters will in nearly every instance be found to be a strong, powerful, 
 and valuable liquid manure. 
 
 In districts where tile drainage has been extensively adopted, it has 
 been found that springs and wells in many instances fail. 
 
 This is an inevitable result of direct drainage whether on surface or 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 33 
 
 beneath it. It is the surplus water held in marshy places, or sinking to 
 some subterranean pool which furnishes the supply and keeps them living. 
 Mr. Cole by his method drains the surface of producing soil perfectly, and 
 gathers the surplus water in storage to feed soil and crop by capillary flow, 
 or spring and well by percolation. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 The New System. 
 
 The principles and processes of this new system are so simple and 
 plain that the farmer of average intelligence can not only understand and 
 apply it, but, having so conformed soils as to set the system in operation, 
 he may leave it to run itself, which it will do, day and night, year in and 
 year out, summer and winter alike ; and so perfect is its work at all times, 
 that it results in the utmost possibilities of production. 
 
 The system is alike applicable to flat or hill lands, and its operation 
 on one is as certain and successful as on the other. It is applicable to all 
 soils, adapted to lands in and on which are found stone, or soil free of 
 them ; to arid districts, or to sections where the rains and snows of fall, 
 winter, and spring are ample. For each of these conditions the principle 
 and results are the same ; some minor points as to materials used in con- 
 struction, depth of drainage and of soil over the stored waters, being the 
 only changes to consider. These we will treat under proper heads. For 
 a general description, we will give it as applied by Mr. Cole on his hill- 
 side, where stone were abundant and used in construction. 
 
 A trench, one yard wide and four feet deep, was opened along the 
 hill side, crossing the plot a distance of about twelve rods. Two rods 
 below this and parallel with it, another of the same dimensions was con- 
 structed, and so on down the slope. At the bottom of these were loosely 
 placed cobble and blocky stone, until the trench was nearly half filled, 
 then smaller stone were laid over these, finer ones then added, until a 
 comparatively even surface resulted. Next came shingling with flat stone, 
 
34 
 
 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 two layers from end to end, breaking joints, being required. Over these 
 was placed a cover of sods, weeds, straw, or best available material, to 
 prevent the fine earth from filling the crevices between the stone. The 
 excavated soil was then spread over all, the clay being the first returned 
 to the trenches. The remaining surface and subsoil was pulverized and 
 admixed, all fine stone being raked out, when the trench was filled to a 
 point slightly above the original surface. This was done so, when settled, 
 all should be even. 
 
 As these trenches were dug they were connected by overflow or 
 drainage trenches, three in number, one at each end, and one in the 
 middle. These were sunk in the soil about eighteen inches, and being 
 filled with fine stone raked from the soil to a depth of about six inches, 
 shingled and sodded the same as the reservoir, till the entire hillside 
 presented a uniform surface throughout. This conformation of soils results 
 in two water-tables beneath, one of percolation from the bottom of re- 
 servoir trenches, the other of overflow and filtration in times of surfeit. 
 The lands thus fitted leave shingling of reservoirs and overflow below 
 
 _/?. 
 
 No. i. 
 
 the reach of spade, plow or other tools used in working the land, but 
 left ample room for the roots of all growing vegetation. These trenches 
 completed and connected, formed elongated reservoirs, which filled by the 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 35 
 
 water courses cut off, or by the melting snows and early rains, thus hold- 
 ing in storage thousands of barrels of water which would otherwise have 
 been lost in wash or drainage, and at the same time so saturating sub- 
 soils as to convert them into store-houses filled with moisture to be found, 
 at all times available for use in the growth of vegetation. If the reader 
 will take the above brief description and consider it carefully in connec- 
 tion with the cuts illustrating the system he will find no trouble in under- 
 standing the principles of construction. 
 
 The cut on page 34 will show how to arrange the system on 
 hill-side or sloping lands, when stone are plenty for use in trenches 
 and over-flow drains, and the soil is underlaid with hard-pan, or any 
 other firm subsoil. 
 
 No. 2. 
 
 In the absence of fine stone in the soil to be used for overflows, 
 gravel from the pit or other sources should be used and if neither are 
 available, tile should be substituted. We prefer tile. 
 
 Cut No. 2, illustrates the system when applied to very steep lands 
 which are terraced, used either for grapes, small fruits or ornamental 
 shrubs ; it shows arrangement of narrow terraces with a single trench, or 
 wide terrace with double trenches. 
 
 Level lands are laid out, trenched and connected in the same way, 
 the only thing necessary being some point from which the surplus waters 
 can be drawn off at the desired depth beneath the surface soil. This out- 
 let may be made from anyone of the trenches in the system. The waters 
 in the trenches cannot, raise above the overflow or drain trenches, and 
 when below them, distribute themselves evenly through the subsoil. If 
 
36 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 there is no point where drainage can be readily secured, sink a dry well to 
 where the water will pass off. 
 
 Use of Tile- The use of round tile in the system of sub-irrigation is 
 suggested to meet the wants of those who may wish to provide for the 
 sub-irrigation of small tracts where the soil is level and stone are not to be 
 had in sufficient quantities or in any quantity worth mentioning. Also 
 in lands not underlaid by retentive subsoils. 
 
 The greater ease of making round tile and preserving the form per- 
 fectly, leads us to favor (for the purpose of sub-irrigation) the use of 
 large round tile, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 15 inches in size. 
 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 Cut No. 3 represents tile as used. 
 
 A A represents the large tile reservoirs and B B the drainage line of 
 tile laid above and across the reservoir tile. The large reservoir pipe 
 should be laid on a level and closed at each end. The water passing 
 out slowly through the joints of the pipe. The clay near the joints will 
 soon become puddled so that the water would percolate through it slowly 
 when laid in clay. If laid in sandy, light or porous soils, the joints 
 should be puddled sufficiently to prevent rapid escape of the waters. A 
 small escape at the joints in addition to that which will pass through the 
 porous tile, will be ample and effective. At the point where they cross 
 it is intended that connections be made by means of openings in both 
 the reservoir and overflow or drainage line of tile. The latter may be 
 constructed of three-inch tile and laid at such distances apart as the 
 character of the soil may require. 
 
 Square Trencher When small plots are to be fitted, or the nature 
 of the soil is such that there is danger of the trenches filling with silt, a 
 square tile can be used for the storage trenches. The trench can be 
 opened and the top plate taken off, and the silt thrown out with com- 
 parative ease. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 37 
 
 In sections where lumber is cheap, any planking which last well 
 beneath the soil may be used. Round three-inch tile will here also an- 
 swer for overflows. 
 
 No. 4. 
 
 Cut No. 4 represents the arrangement of the square trenches on hill- 
 side and flat lands. 
 
 Cement Trenches. On all sand lands, when the sand is deep and 
 leaches rapidly, trenches are opened, and the bottoms and sides made 
 nearly tight by spreading a thin layer of mortar over the bottom, and up 
 the sides as high as desired. The mortar is made by mixing one part 
 Portland cement and seven parts sand. To cement the bottom, set a 
 curbing of loose boards and pour in the mortar and level to the desired 
 depth. Cement sides in same way. 
 
 The foregoing description and cut illustrate fully the methods of 
 applying the system. 
 
 The next thing to consider is depth of soil to be left over and above 
 trenches and overflow drains. Not only is it best to vary this according 
 to the different uses to which the land is to be put, but as different soils 
 have different capillary powers, depth must vary accordingly. For 
 general purposes, we would recommend the following depths at which to 
 put the overflows and drains. 
 
 In muck lands 1 8 inches. 
 
 In garden soils 20 " 
 
 In sand " 12 to 15 " 
 
 In clay " 18 to 20 
 
 When lands are laid out for special purposes, the character of the 
 growth to be made upon it must be considered. For all shallow-root- 
 ing vegetation the soil should have less depth than for deep-rooting. 
 
38 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 For shallow growths the soil should be : 
 
 In muck Not less than 15 inches nor over 24 inches. 
 
 in garden soil " " " 20 " " 30 " 
 
 In sand soil " " 10 " " 16 
 
 In clay soil 4t " 18 " " 26 
 
 The following table is a good guide by which to go in laying out 
 lands : 
 
 Muck will lift water in about 30 days 1 8 inches. 
 
 Garden soil " " " " 28 '* 
 
 Sand ' k " " " 10 '" 
 
 Clay " " " " 28 " 
 
 Depth and Distance. The depth and distance apart of the storage 
 trenches are not governed by arbitrary rules, but the following general 
 rules should be observed : 
 
 In sinking the main or storage trenches, the bottoms of them, 
 regardless of material used, should be sunk below the freezing point, and 
 should be from end to end at a water level, and when this is done the 
 stored waters are kept several degrees warmer than the surface soil and 
 the air above. 
 
 Evaporation from them keeps the soil from other than very shallow 
 freezing ; also helps it to warm some weeks earlier in the spring and 
 permits it to be worked from two to four weeks sooner than it otherwise 
 could. Size of storage trenches, or storage tile, and the distance apart 
 at which they are placed, will depend upon the quantity of water desir- 
 able to store. 
 
 On lands where the water supply must depend wholly upon the stored 
 waters of winter's snows and early spring rains, more trench capacity is 
 necessary than when the system can be supplied by some regular, unfail- 
 ing source. 
 
 Lands used for family or market gardens, where crops follow in suc- 
 cession the season through, lands devoted to small fruits, especially 
 strawberries, fancy lawns, flower-beds and small shrubbery, will require 
 more water than lands devoted to grass, grains, potatoes or other general 
 farm crops, and should have more storage capacity. 
 
 The closer the storage trenches are placed together, and the greater 
 their size, the more water they will store, and there is no danger of hav- 
 ing this quantity too great. If, in applying, the storage trenches are put 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 39 
 
 at greater distances apart than is desired or desirable, additional trenches 
 can be at any time put between the original ones, and connected with 
 the overflows. In putting in storage trenches, we would advise the set- 
 ting at either end of the trench, at the head of the system, a wooden box, 
 about six inches square, or a six-inch tile, rising about a foot above the 
 surface of the ground. 
 
 Through this may be seen how much water is in the trenches or 
 waters charged with certain elements, or for certain purposes may be run 
 into the system. If a large territory is covered put them at other points. 
 
 For Family and Market Gardens, small fruit growing, etc., the 
 system should be applied with a view to storage of all water possible, that 
 they may be ample to furnish all the moisture crops of this kind require, 
 and that every particle of manures and fertilizers put upon the ground 
 may be converted from solid to liquid forms. Put the storage trenches 
 in as close together as possible, or as you can at first afford to do. Carry 
 the bottoms below the freezing point, and make overflow connections 
 ample to carry all the water from trench to trench without rising into 
 the soil above. 
 
 Put in, at the head of the system, the upright box or- tile before 
 mentioned, that you may run into storage all the waters from roofs of 
 buildings within reach of the plot ; also liquid manures and house-slops, 
 which should be carefully utilized. Free all liquids of their solids before 
 letting them into the storage trenches. Establish as near the head of the 
 system as possible a mulch vat, made by setting on edge boards to the 
 desired height, staking them firmly on sides ; no bottom is necessary. 
 Into this vat throw everything of a mineral or organic character useful 
 for manure that can be procured. Stable manure, weeds, muck, leaves, 
 night-soil, leather scraps, tobacco stems, lime, ashes, plaster, bones, and 
 bone dust. There need be no fear of losing ammonia by adding lime. 
 The lime is needed for the rapid decomposition of the manure. 
 
 With every rain leaching takes place directly from this vat into the 
 storage trenches, and the water is rich in plant food. 
 
 All solids too heavy for capillary attraction to lift, are deposited in 
 the soil above the trenches as the water passes down through it. For 
 vegetable and fruit growing, the soil over the trenches should be from 18 
 to 24 inches in all soils other than sand. This depth gives deep rooting 
 where necessary, and to shallow-rooting vegetation ample moisture by 
 capillary flow. Soils filled with stone should be deep plowed, or better 
 
40 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 still on small plots, spaded and forked, that the stone may all be taken 
 out, whether used for construction of other trenches or not. Stone in the 
 soil, especially those near the surface, interfere with the proper rooting 
 and downward growth of plants, and under some conditions, cause fungus 
 and other plant diseases, being particularly fatal to strawberry plants. 
 Removing the stone and working the soil tends to giving a compact, fine 
 producing surface soil which holds and draws waters in capillary flow 
 moreabudantly than coarser soils, or those filled with stone, and plants of 
 garden and small fruit varieties require an abundant supply of moisture. 
 
 Lawns. By this system lawns can be carpeted with a fine, velvety 
 green grass, starting earlier in spring, and never ceasing in growth until 
 killed by the frosts of winter, and when well protected by snow will remain 
 green all winter. Put in storage trenches as is done for garden purposes 
 in every way. Turn into them all the waters which can be so led, and 
 supply whenever desired liquid manures. This saves surface dressing at any 
 time other than in winter, when the manures put on will protect the grass, 
 and the teachings of it will be deposited in soil, or stored in reservoirs 
 to feed the growth of early spring. Over the system here the soil should 
 not be more than twelve inches, as grass thrives best on soils cool and 
 at all times, full of moisture. 
 
 The more generous the water supply to grass the better the growth 
 and color, as long as the supply is moving, and not stagnant water. Flow- 
 ering plants and shrubs, when thus supplied with food and drink, reach 
 perfection in growth and blossom. 
 
 Orchards. Fruit trees make rapid growth of wood, shed their old 
 bark, become freed from scale and the insects they harbor, have few if 
 any off years, put out more blossoms, develop more fruit, and ripen it 
 off in beauty and perfection. Disease is less likely to attack a tree, and 
 if it does so, can be much more readily and perfectly checked. Hiber- 
 nating pests which infest fruit trees, stinging blossom and fruit, will not 
 enter and remain in the moist soils in any number, but should they do so 
 can with their spawn, be readily destroyed by special applications carried 
 through the soil by the circulating waters. 
 
 In orchard, and among fruit trees of all varieties, the trenches or 
 tile should be as large and of as great storage capacity as possible. 
 Trees should be as far apart as the greatest distances recommended by 
 nurserymen, and the trenches located between them a single trench 
 to each row and that exactly in the center of the space between rows. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 41 
 
 When too near, the roots of a tree are apt to put out a mass of small, 
 sap roots, which enter and choke up the trenches. Give them distance, 
 and the power of capillary attraction will draw all the necessary water to 
 the tree, and the root-growth be checked. Of irrigated orchards, Mr. 
 Henry Stewart in his valuable book says : 
 
 " It is doubtful if there is a single orchard or vineyard in the United 
 States, except California, Utah or Colorado, subjected to a systematic 
 irrigation. At the same time it is doubtful if there is any country in the 
 world in which irrigation could be more profitably applied to fruit culture 
 than here. The experience of orchardists proves that drought is accom- 
 panied by destructive attacks of insects. How far these depredations 
 might be prevented by irrigation cannot be predicted, but it is beyond 
 doubt that the vigor of growth that would result from a sufficient supply 
 of moisture to the roots would greatly mitigate the effects of these attacks. 
 The apple trees that never have an ' off-year ' are those grown near bodies 
 of water. A California vineyardist who irrigated his vines immediately 
 raised his product to eight tons of grapes per acre, and greatly improved 
 in quality." 
 
 When the supply of water to the system depends wholly upon the 
 rains and melting snows, there is no danger of the amount being too great 
 for tree and fruit, as the annual rainfall is never in excess even when all 
 held of the amount trees require. If other supply of water is provided, 
 care should be taken in its use, as the penalty for an excessive irrigation 
 is a crop of fruit of inferior quality, watery, soft, and without flavor. A 
 good rule is to irrigate four times a year only at the starting of the first 
 growth, at the blossoming, at the setting of the fruit, and at the period 
 when the fruit commences to color. 
 
 Grass, and other general farm crops, do not require the careful pre- 
 paration of soil necessary and advisable for gardens and small fruit lands. 
 
 In applying the system for ordinary farm crops, give as great storage 
 capacity as possible, as the more water stored the greater the benefits. 
 When the storage trenches are completed and the connections for over- 
 flow made, return the excavated soil, plow the entire plot and plant or 
 seed as desired. 
 
 As the system receives, holds, and returns to the crop the waters of rain 
 and snow, a complete change in the character of the soil, its color, tem- 
 perature and power of production will be seen to gradually and surely 
 take place. This change is absolute and sure, caused by the soil's filtering 
 
42 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 out animalcule and other elements ; the fertility of the waters is, as it 
 were, screened and strained into the land, enabling it to nourish vegetation. 
 
 Grass abundantly supplied with water is one of the most profitable 
 crops grown, requiring much less labor and always finding a ready cash 
 market. This system grows grass to its utmost perfection and limit of 
 production, as it enables the waters to enter the soil and holds it there, 
 keeping it cool and supplying the constant moisture grass requires for 
 perfect growth. 
 
 Arable Lands. As on these lands a water supply must be had, the 
 necessity for water storage does not exist in as great a degree, and the tile 
 or trenches for distribution of the water beneath the surface may be 
 larger or smaller according to judgment. Here size must be governed 
 by extent of tract to be irrigated and amount of water to be carried 
 beneath it. 
 
 Lay out the grounds in parallel trenches, and in these put the dis- 
 tributing tile on a water level, and connect at alternate ends. By an 
 upright tile at head of system provide for running the water in, and at the 
 foot of system close the tile that the water may be held and forced out 
 by its own pressure at joints into the soil. Eighteen inches in all but very 
 sandy and gravelly lands is a good depth at which to lay the tile, as this 
 permits the soil to hold sufficient water for the crops, without sinking 
 below the power of capillary attraction, or coming so near the surface as 
 to interfere with tillage or be subjected to immediate evaporation. 
 
 In rainless sections, or districts nearly so, evaporation is much more 
 rapid than in others, and the loss of waters supplied in surface irrigation 
 is a very large percentage. Put your water below the roots of crops and 
 evaporation is in very large part checked, and the land never bakes, but 
 keeps cool, moist and loose. One-fourth the water used underground, is 
 better than the whole on the surface, and the saving which can be thus 
 made will alone pay all costs of application. Where the rainfall of winter 
 is copious, by constructing storage trench of large capacity the rains may 
 all be held for spring and summer growth of crops. 
 
 Artesian Wells. In Texas, Florida, Colorado, and many of the other 
 Southern and Western States and Territories, artesian wells are readily 
 obtained and may be used when necessary or desirable as feeders to this 
 system. When they are used and wholly depended upon for water supply 
 the system can be put in with smaller storage capacity, but in every other 
 regards the same. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 43 
 
 Waters from these wells, as from springs, etc., are never of the ben- 
 efit to crops and soil as are the waters of rainfall, having been in their 
 percolation and flow through the minute water veins of earth, deprived 
 of the most valuable of their fertilizing elements, and having in many 
 instances been charged with mineral and chemical substances, the 
 washings of which are injurious to plant life. When artesian well, spring, 
 or even river waters are used, it will be found necessary to use greater 
 amounts of manures and fertilizers than where the rain-waters are fully 
 stored, and changes in the nature of the soil will never be as great. At 
 some points artesian wells are found whose waters are of a very high tem- 
 perature, and here very advantageous use can be made of them, as their 
 waters can be made to impart early warmth to soil and continue it until 
 late in fall, in some localities the year through, in fact, and that to a point 
 where plant growth may be made every month in the year. In another 
 chapter, devoted to the use of hot water 'in this system, will be more fully 
 explained the benefits which can be derived from the use of these warm 
 waters from artesian sources. 
 
 Swamp Lands. These lands, in nearly every instance, are so located 
 that they do, and have for generations, received the waters and washings of 
 higher lands. To the fertility thus brought to them has been added from 
 year to year the decay of the rank vegetable growth which has grown upon 
 them, and they are thus made the most valuable of lands when once 
 reclaimed. On such lands as these can this system be established in one 
 of its most valuable forms. Lay out the line of storage trenches, and in 
 mid-summer, at the time of drouth if possible, sink them four feet or 
 more. Fill with stone to within two feet of surface, or if stone are not to 
 be had, lay a large tile. Connect storage trenches by the overflow drains 
 two feet below the surface, and put in the drain which is to lead off the 
 surplus at the same depth, tapping the trench which is nearest the point 
 where the surplus water is to be led off. Replace the soil over all. 
 
 When the rains come, or the waters wash down upon it, they immedi- 
 ately sink into storage until all trenches contain two feet of water, having 
 risen to the point of overflow. Above this point only water of capillary 
 attraction can flow, and the two feet of soil above is in the best possible 
 producing form. 
 
 If the swamp was formed by springs a water table is created for them, 
 and they will keep the water supply up at all times. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Workings of the System. 
 
 In the considerations of the workings of this system we will first 
 take up that of irrigation. 
 
 The trenches and overflow drains having been completed and the soil re- 
 placed over them, the workings of the system begin by the trenches filling 
 with the waters cut off in underground flow, or by the leaching down 
 through the surface soil of the melting snows or falling rains. Having 
 once filled to the point of overflow, all surplus water is carried off. As 
 long as the rainfall is ample, or the soil is filled with water the trenches 
 will remain full, or nearly so. When the rains cease, and the growing 
 crops and evaporation begin abstracting the moisture from the soil, capil- 
 pillary attraction and the surface phenomena of evaporation begin the 
 work of lifting the stored waters from the trenches, or the saturated sub- 
 soils beneath and between them. 
 
 During the growing season, evaporation is in excess of the rainfall with 
 reference to bare soil, or with reference to transpiration from plant growth. 
 Consequently, the direction of movement of the soil water in this cli- 
 mate is upward rather than downward; not to exceed ten per cent, of the 
 waters entering the storage trenches, or the subsoil beneath or between 
 them, will, in ordinary soils sink to a point where the powers of capillary 
 attraction and evaporation cannot pump them back to the growing vege- 
 tation. By this system a water table is artificially created which will make 
 farming a success, by giving a stored water supply within the soil from 
 the surplus of the season when evaporation is somewhat checked, or 
 from the waters accumulated from surface or saturated flow. This water 
 table, or storage, is of great consequence to the tiller of the soil, as fur- 
 nishing the source of prevention or mitigation of drouths. 
 
 This water table must be uniform, and controlled through the process 
 of draining, or we would have conditions unfavorable to the working of 
 the land and to plant growth, for vegetation cannot thrive with roots in 
 stagnant water. 
 
 The series of overflow and outlet drains used in connection with 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 45 
 
 these storage trenches furnish this drainage, and establish a line above 
 which water of upward flow cannot pass, and below which sinking waters 
 musf go. We hence have a depth of soil above the trench and drain 
 level which is freed from the washings of the waters of the storage waters, and 
 which is kept from the stagnation produced by the action of water in excess; 
 it hence retains and increases its power of capillary action, and draws regu- 
 larly through this capillarity from the stored waters, never abstracting in 
 excess of the plant needs, and in proper soil and under proper conditions 
 of soil treatment, never stinting the water supply to the plant. This ever 
 upward movement of water, only intermittingly interrupted through percol- 
 ating water of rainfalls, conserves soil fertility within itself, and even recov- 
 ers soil fertility from the layers of soil subjected to the steepings of the 
 reservoir water. 
 
 These facts suggest a direction as to the depth at which drains 
 should be placed. A drain should not be so deeply located as to carry 
 the water table beyond the power of capillarity to freely convey to the sur- 
 face the stored waters, but should be as deeply laid as consistent with this 
 purpose of securing water movement to the surface. 
 
 The capillary flow of the stored waters can be largely regulated by 
 two simple methods. Where a crop is put upon the land to which a large 
 supply of moisture is necessary, compress the soil closely beneath the 
 seed or plants. Compression of the soil re-establishes capillary connec- 
 tions which become broken through the process of plowing and fitting 
 the land, and hence is of avail toward supplying a constant access of 
 moisture to the young plant. The firmer the soil is made the more rapid 
 it draws the waters. Should less moisture be desired than the soil nat- 
 urally draws, straw or coarse manure may be worked into it to an extent 
 sufficient to check the capillary flow to any point desired. These con- 
 clusions can be readily verified. During the dry season of July let coarse 
 manure be spaded into the soil in preparation of a strawberry bed, and 
 then immediately set out the young plants. Unless timely rain inter- 
 venes, it will be found that these plants will perish from drouth, as the 
 coarse manure has broken the capillary connections, and no supply of 
 moisture can come from below. 
 
 If however, this land be thoroughly rolled with a heavy roller, by 
 which contacts are established and connection with the lower soil fur- 
 thered, capillary attraction will furnish a supply of water from below, and 
 the plants will receive sufficient nourishment for their growth. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Effects of the System. 
 
 On Soil. The effects upon soils of this system are most marked, 
 especially so upon clay soils, soils underlaid by hardpan or sandy soil. 
 Clay soils are above the overflow, and drains trenches deprived of their 
 naturally sticky, cold, and wet condition in spring and fall, are early 
 made light, dry, warm, and friable, and put in the best possible condition 
 to work. 
 
 In heat of summer evaporation from below keeps the soil moist, pre- 
 vents baking and cracking, and the ground is at all times soft and easy or 
 tillage. The percolation of the waters from level to level, and from 
 trench to trench, carrying with them in their flow, air, light, warmth, and 
 elements of fertilization natural to the waters, or taken up and deposited 
 by them in their passage, so change the soil between the trenches that it 
 gradually becomes as the surface soil, sweet, warm, light, and rich in 
 plant food down to a point as deep as the bottom of the storage trenches. 
 This condition of the soil allows the roots of growing crops to more 
 freely penetrate it. There they ramify, and in times of drouth are cool 
 and moist, independent of the scorching sun and drying air above. The 
 foliage remains green and thrifty, perfect growth, development or fruitage 
 goes on, being constantly fed by the life-giving moisture. 
 
 Again, the soil being thus opened the aerial gases, especially oxygen, 
 enter it, and decompose the organic matters so that they can be taken up 
 by, and nourish, the plants. By opening the soil we admit the air. 
 
 Air is as vital a necessity to vegetation as water, and if access of air 
 is denied the roots of the plants must perish. Where water goes air fol- 
 lows, and as evaporation takes place air fills the space previously occu- 
 pied by the water. It equalizes the temperature and prevents sudden 
 changes of heat and cold. It renders the soil drier and warmer, earlier 
 in spring and later in fall, thus greatly prolonging the planting and grow- 
 ing season. In dry seasons the soil is moistened by condensation of the 
 air admitted into it not only from above but also from the drains and 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 47 
 
 trenches beneath, as well as by the stored waters. The soil is thus made 
 more open and mellow, roots penetrate farther and get more nutriment. 
 The open dry soil absorbs miasmatic gases which enrich the soil and purify 
 the air, thus increasing health and wealth. 
 
 These same changes and effects are produced on hardpan lands, 
 and firm retentive subsoil. Sand lands are made moist and cool, and 
 given the power to nourish and feed vegetation through the medium of the 
 waters. 
 
 Perfect vegetable growth on sand in heat of summer is not possible, 
 as the temperature of the sand becomes such as to literally burn it root 
 and branch. Surface irrigation or watering affords but little relief, as 
 scalding then but takes the place of burning. 
 
 Apply the waters beneath and all is changed. 
 
 They are beyond the direct effects of the sun and its rays, and afford 
 coolness and moisture at the same time. Sandy soils warm much earlier 
 in spring, hold heat later in the fall, and where they can be kept cool and 
 moist in midsummer can be made to bear continuous crops for longer 
 periods, and in the most luxurious growth possible to vegetation. 
 
 Poverty of the soil (a condition, indeed, mainly due to a poverty of 
 the water) is unknown, and impossible under the system. Any element 
 lacking in the soil to the growth of a crop can at once be carried into, 
 and through it by the medium of the stored and circulating waters. 
 
 Lands now said to be worn out, and which, through their firm and 
 compact condition are not capable of absorbing air, light, or water in 
 quantities sufficient to support vegetable life, can, by this system be made 
 to produce crops in as great abundance as at any time in the past, and 
 this in many instances, without the addition of manures or fertilizers to 
 them. Open them up by it ; allow them to drink in fully the season's 
 rains, absorb the heat, take in the light, and beathe in the air, that all 
 may reach the roots of the crops to be put upon it, and it will in most 
 instances be found these elements were alone lacking. 
 
 Washing of the soil by heavy rainfalls with their loss and damage to 
 lands and crops, is absolutely prevented. 
 
 The moist, open, and light soil above drain and storage trench at 
 once taking up the rainfall without regard to its extent, and pass it 
 down to the reservoirs. The surplus if any will be passed off through 
 the overflow trenches without in the least disturbing the surface or the 
 crops grown thereon. 
 
48 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Soils under this system are also made untenantable for destructive 
 insects and other pests which infest or hibernate in them, and which every 
 year in one portion or another of the country, reduce farmers' profits or 
 cause them to disappear. Moisture is destructive of the pest and its spawn, 
 but when this system is in use this condition need not be depended upon 
 alone to rid the soil of vermin. The tiller has it in his power to change 
 the circulating waters of the system with elements and remedies which will 
 at once destroy or drive out every pest it may contain. To illustrate : If 
 a plot of ground becomes infested by wire, cut worms, or other white 
 grub, they can at once be destroyed by letting into the storage trenches a 
 solution of copperas water. This is taken up by the stored waters and 
 carried by percolation and capillary attraction all through the soil, the 
 pest destroyed, and the crop benefited, as copperas is a powerful stimu- 
 lant and fertilizer. Kanite, saltpeter, muriate of potash, wood ashes, and 
 many other substances destructive to vermin but highly beneficial to vege- 
 tation can be used in the same way. 
 
 Hibernating insects will not enter or remain in soils charged with 
 some of these salts, as they do in soils which are not. Where the land 
 has been charged, potato bugs, circulio, and insects of their kind, have 
 largely disappeared. 
 
 As these things are used to destroy vermin, so may others be used 
 to cure or prevent blights and other diseases which attack plant, crop, 
 shrub, or tree. 
 
 By the aid of the stored waters can the necessary food or remedy be 
 carried directly into the circulation of the object to be treated. Many of 
 the blights and diseases to which fruit trees and shrubs are subject, and 
 which no outward application reaches, can be at once checked or cured 
 if the remedy is carried directly into their bodies, limbs, and foliage, by 
 medium of root and sap. As internal remedies are necessary to the sys- 
 tem of man or beast in case of disease, so are they necessary to plant 
 life, and having the power to administer, you have the power to cure or 
 prevent. 
 
 When special applications are to be made for a special purpose, dis- 
 solve the ingredients in water, and lead it into the storage trench, 
 directly above the soil, crop, shrubs, or trees to be treated. 
 
 Effects on Crops. The effects of the system on crops are as marked 
 and wonderful as they are certain. As it warms and dries the lands some 
 weeks earlier in spring it permits of much earlier seeding or setting, 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 49 
 
 and gives the crop a good early start, which every cultivator of the soil 
 knows is the making of it. So soon as the seed sprouts, or the set plant 
 puts out its first roots, the crop begins to receive and take up all the 
 water necessary to its perfect growth, development or fruitage. As long 
 as the spring rains are abundant for the demands of the crop, the stored 
 waters are not drawn upon ; but let them fail, and the demands of the 
 vegetation exceed the supply furnished by the rains or contained in the 
 upper soil, and capillary attraction sets her countless pumps at work, 
 drawing to the roots of the crop from the stored waters beneath all the 
 nutriment necessary to its continuous growth and perfect development, 
 but never in excess of the demand. 
 
 As these stored waters rise in capillary flow they bring with them in 
 solution all the fertilizing elements natural to the rain and snow waters, 
 also that which they have gathered from the soil in their percolation 
 down to storage. Plants and crops thus watered and fed become more 
 perfect than is possible under other conditions, grow to a much greater 
 size, and when of the flowering and fruiting varieties, have the strength 
 and power to put out a greater number and stronger fruit-stems and 
 blossoms, and of carrying them to perfect growth. Plants, shrubs, vines, 
 bushes, grass, or any crop which stands upon the ground through the 
 winter, receive constant and never-ceasing benefit. 
 
 As evaporation from the stored waters prevents to a large degree 
 freezing of the ground, and keeps the soil some degrees warmer a few 
 inches beneath the surface, than is the air above, the crop, plant or 
 shrub, put out and build up a mass of white root which will begin to feed 
 and water them as soon as warm weather starts the sap. This growth of 
 white roots, in their formation, exert the power of capillary attraction to a 
 greater or less degree, and draw to them the waters in downward or up- 
 ward flow. These waters bring and deposit food and fertility, which 
 the plant will at once take up and assimilate, as soon as growth above 
 ground begins. In this feeding upon substances brought to them, they 
 make their own selections, choosing that which is necessary or best suit- 
 ed to their growth and development, and rejecting everything offensive or 
 unsuited to their natures. 
 
 On the plot of ground put under the system by Mr. Cole, this winter 
 growth of root has taken place every year, and the rapid, strong growth shown 
 by the vegetation occupying the ground in early spring is proof that great 
 strength is accumulated by and for the plant during non-producing months. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Builds Up Soils, Saves Manures. 
 
 Artificial watering by any method never gives as satisfactory results,, 
 even when ample, as will one good shower of rain. This is because the 
 waters of spring, well, or stream, have been strained and deprived in their 
 flow through soil or along water course of the elements which they, as 
 rain water, oiiginally contained, elements which renew and build up soils 
 worn or wearing by constant cropping. Rain water becomes so chemi- 
 cally changed and charged by the process of evaporation, condensation, 
 and fall, that when it comes in abundance crops grow, thrive, and develop 
 to a state of perfection not possible even with any other equally abundant 
 water supply, and the soil shows evidence of having been enriched. 
 
 To the chemical changes which take place in the rain waters in their 
 rise by evaporation and fall as rain are the additions of solids which they 
 gather and deposit when confined. 
 
 These solids are concentrated fertilizers, far superior for plant growth 
 to anything man has ever been able to compound. They are also much 
 more abundant than is generally known or supposed, a year's rainfall 
 making a deposit of no mean amount over a surface where caught and 
 held. 
 
 As it is with the rain waters, so is it with the snows in their effects,, 
 elements and deposits. 
 
 While all snows contain these ingredients, and are of value, the snows 
 of March are particularly rich in them, and are of sanitary and medical 
 value to man, as well as soil and crop. While discussing with Dr. Trios. 
 Herron, a well-known physician and specialist, of Cincinnati, Ohio, this 
 question of storing the waters of rain and snow, he remarked : " Yes, in 
 thus saving for your crops these waters, you gain an advantage which no 
 other method can give you. 
 
 Not alone for soil and crop have these waters wonderful chemical prop- 
 erties, but for the use of mankind as well. The snows of the month of 
 March contain elements, electric, magnetic or chemical, we know not 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 51 
 
 which, which are of particular value. One of the most popular and suc- 
 cessful eye waters on the market is nothing more or less than water of 
 March snows carefully gathered (so as to save filtering), melted and 
 bottled. 
 
 Again, if the ladies would so gather and bottle this snow water, using 
 it for the purpose of sponging the face, they would find it, as a pre- 
 server of complexion and skin, much superior to the best known cosmetic 
 in use. That it has equally as many and valuable properties for crop use 
 I cannot doubt." 
 
 Where the country is covered with forest, and the soil is made a 
 perfect sponge by the roots, decaying woods, leaves, and mosses, the 
 snow and rain waters are absorbed, and their deposits held in the ground. 
 These and the small amount of vegetable decay annually taking place on 
 them, are all the fertilizers the soil ever receives, and yet the yearly growth 
 of wood, foliage, wild plants, vines and grasses exceed in weight and 
 bulk any crop which could be grown on the same soil when under tillage. 
 This primeval growth takes place year after year, and increases rather 
 than decreases. 
 
 Clear off the forest and crop the ground a few years and all is 
 changed. Tillage breaks up the little water cells of the loose soil, packs 
 it, forms by compact root of crop, sun-baked surface in summer, or fro- 
 zen one in winter, a roof, so to speak, which turns off in large part these 
 waters, leading them with their valuable contents to ditch, drain, or 
 stream, where they are lost to soil and crop. This loss is not, nor can be 
 ever made up, by the application of barnyard manures or commercial 
 fertilizers. This is also not the only loss occurring under these condi- 
 tions. The flow of water carries in its course fine particles of soil, or 
 manures in bulk or solution. 
 
 As fertilizing applications are generally made in fall, winter, or early 
 spring, when the rains are copious, they, or the melting snows, carry 
 into the streams a very large percentage of the most valuable parts of 
 the applications made. What farmer has not seen these dark-dyed waters 
 rushing off over the surface of his land, carrying away the best of the 
 soil, and his fertilizers also. So great is this loss on the average, the 
 checking of it would save enough in manures and increase of crop to 
 pay the expense of doing all work required by the new system. Tile 
 drainage, which has in the past few years become popular, and is being 
 rapidly extended, has in some degree changed these conditions and 
 
52 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 checked this loss by making the soil light and porous, enabling it to take 
 up the rainfall. Where this is light, and the amount not sufficient to 
 sink down to the tile, all is saved ; but where it is in excess of what the 
 soil can absorb and hold, the tile at once leads the surplus away, and this 
 too is lost, with what it still holds of plant food. 
 
 Here once more are the rains of fall, winter, and spring largely lost, 
 as they afford a much larger amount of water than the soil can of itself 
 retain, and the surplus escapes. 
 
 Rainfalls on tile-drained lands, which are of sufficient volume to sink 
 down to the drains, deposit in percolation all, or nearly all, their solids ; 
 but during this downward course they dissolve and carry with them near- 
 ly the whole of every fertilizer or manure contained in the soil which 
 can be rendered solvent, and would carry off all, should they be contin- 
 ued for any great length of time. Go to the outlet of the tile drain beneath 
 a highly fertilized plot of ground, and catch some of the escaping waters 
 in fall or spring, or during a heavy rainfall in summer, and you will 
 find they are rich in elements of fertilization. In other words, you will 
 find it is a liquid manure, so rich in plant-food one would gladly pay its 
 full value in hard cash to have it returned to soil and crop. Mr. Cole, 
 by his system, prevents and saves this loss. 
 
 His lands are made light, open, and sponge-like, and have the power 
 to absorb the rainfall in its entirety, summer, fall, winter, and spring alike, 
 and having taken it all up, they pass it down to drain tile, and from tile to 
 storage. 
 
 The importance of passing the rainfall down through the soil, rather 
 than over the surface, is seldom thought of or in anywise appreciated. 
 Stick a pin right here when we say the water of rainfall that falls on the sur- 
 face of agricultural lands ought to pass through the soil and subsoil for 
 the better fertility and better mechanical condition of soil and subsoil. 
 
 Think of the fertility wasted annually by the surface washing of the 
 land, the soil loaded with richness, and the finer particles carried away 
 in the muddy water never to return in any form. 
 
 In percolation down to storage the water does not deposit all of its 
 mineral and gaseous elements, which possess fertilizing qualities, but 
 gathers to it additional richness, which it carries into storage, there 
 to hold and steep in preparation for return to crop as liquid manure, 
 a form in which it has the quickest, most powerful, and complete effect 
 possible on vegetation. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 53 
 
 The use of liquid manure is an economy, and results in a saving of 
 time and labor, and increases the effectiveness of the solid manure. Being 
 applied in the condition in which it will enter at once into the circulation 
 of the plant, there is no loss of fertilizing matter. The crop, fed in its 
 early stages of growth, receives its nutriment in such quantities and at 
 such periods as will exactly meet its needs and force it into most luxuri- 
 ant growth. 
 
 As these teachings of the soil and manures reach the storage trenches 
 they commingle with the other waters contained therein and become dilu- 
 ted, and according to Mr. Stewart in his "Irrigation for Farm, Gaiden, 
 and Orchard," should they become so much diluted as to run off perfectly 
 clear, might be of sufficient strength for all purposes." 
 
 Discoursing on this subject of liquid manuring, Mr. Stewart proceeds 
 further to say: "The danger lies in using liquid manure of too great 
 a strength, rather than in diluting it too copiously. It is this fact which 
 makes the New Agriculture the way, and the only way, to perfection in 
 culture." 
 
 It has been found in practice when a heavy rain has filled the storage 
 trenches in places where there was but a very small supply of manure, and 
 the waters were not less than a hundred times weaker than ordinary liquid 
 manure, they still give wonderful strength and color to the crops. A 
 plant may starve on the most abundantly manured or fertilized soil when 
 it is dry. In fact, fresh manures and all commercial fertilizers applied 
 to crop or soil during, or just previous to a drowth, are injurious to the 
 crop, as they of themselves furnish elements which bum out and destroy 
 the vegetation. They may be applied at a time when all conditions are 
 in their favor, and work benefit in the start, but dry out the surface soil 
 and they change as to fire and destroy. Commercial fertilizers, when 
 honestly made, are of great value to the cultivator of the soil, offering, as 
 they do, in concentrated form and easy of application, some of the most 
 powerful elements of fertilization known or possible. 
 
 That many who have used them have met with failure in realizing 
 expected benefits is well known. This failure is owing not to lack of 
 merit, or the necessary elements in the fertilizer used, but to method and 
 conditions of application. 
 
 As an illustration : A man who is cultivating the soil under old meth- 
 ods and tile drainage, purchases a quantity of some standard brand of 
 commercial fertilizer for use on soil and crop. He is given rules of appli- 
 
54 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 cation, among which is one made prominent and impressive. " In apply- 
 ing this fertilizer, do not let it come in contact with seed or root of plant, 
 as it is so powerful in some of its elements it may cause injury to young 
 and tender roots and plants." Such being the case, he must either apply 
 before the seed or crop is put upon the ground, or between rows so far 
 away that the direct teachings from it will not reach the root. Having so 
 applied, if there were to occur just enough rainfall to slowly and continu- 
 ously act upon it until all is dissolved and diffused through the soil, the 
 effect would be all claimed or expected, but this never happens. If 
 applied as above mentioned, before the crop, heavy rains wash 
 the soluble parts in large percentage away either in surface wash, 
 or by escape through the tile (where used) ere the crop can begin to 
 receive benefits from it. If later in the season it is put between rows of 
 crops, it is more than liable to lack the necessary rainfall to dissolve it in 
 time to feed the crop and materially assist growth ; it is also liable to those 
 sudden and very heavy summer rains which cause great damage and loss 
 as do the more protracted ones of other seasons. To say that 50 per 
 cent, of fertilizers and manures put upon the ground in ordinary condi- 
 tions is lost is a very conservative estimate, and this loss is a very serious 
 and expensive one. 
 
 Apply the same brand of fertilizers on a plot of ground under Mr. 
 Cole's system and see results. If applied early in the season, the rains 
 wash it down into the soil, and what the soil does not hold either in liquid 
 or solid form, the storage trenches receive, dissolved and diffused to return 
 to plant and soil by capillary flow when taking place. 
 
 If applied after the crop is on the ground, and at any time during 
 the season, it has a soil made sufficiently moist by the stored waters (if 
 not by rainfall) to surely and slowly dissolve it. If before this is fully 
 done, a heavy rain comes, down into the storage trenches all goes, only to 
 be returned in good time thoroughly dissolved. In this form its effect 
 on crops is immediate and complete. As it is with commercial fertiliz- 
 ers, so it is with every manure used. 
 
 Mr. Cole found, after having had his system in use for two or three 
 years, that the fertilization contained in the rain waters, and that, which 
 they gathered and saved from the soil, was, with very small additions 
 made in the spring, ample to carry his crops through the year, and devel- 
 op them to perfection. When he first made known this fact, it was said by 
 many persons, and one or two agricultural publications, that his statement 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 55 
 
 was not true, and that no method could be found which would lessen and 
 save this expense of fertilizing. Since then an experiment has been made at 
 the State Agricultural Experimental Station, which proves his statement 
 true, that the benefits of the water, and the saving of manures will, in a 
 very short time, pay all the expense of applying the system, even in its 
 most perfect and ample form. We give an extract from the report of the 
 experiment as made from the station. 
 
 " EFFECT OF COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 
 
 Upon the dryest and most gravelly portion of the field which the 
 fodder corn was grown, several one-tenth acre plots were measured off 
 and treated with several forms of concentrated fertilizers. The corn, 
 Sibley's Pride of the North, was planted on May yth, the fertilizers were 
 applied broadcast on June 4th, 400 pounds per acre being applied in every 
 instance. Below are the given results. 
 
 Plot. Kind of Fertilizer. A f" P er Yield ; 
 
 Acre. Lbs. per Acre. 
 
 1. Ground Bone 400 17,100 
 
 2. Cotton Seed Meal 400 15*450 
 
 3. Cotton Seed Ashes 400 13*900 
 
 4. Equal parts of Cotton Seed Ashes 
 
 and Cotton Seed Meal 400 13,600 
 
 5. Equal parts Ground Bone and Cot- 
 
 ton Seed Meal 400 13,200 
 
 6. Equal parts Ground Bone and Cot- 
 
 ton Seed Ashes 400 *4?73o 
 
 Unfertilized plot on similar soil, 
 
 but in a moister situation 20,610 
 
 The corn was cut September 1 2th and was well matured. 
 As will be seen by the table, no results in the crop can be traced to 
 the use of the fertilizer. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that there 
 was not enough water at hand to enable the plant to use the fertility that 
 was in the soil before the fertilizers were added. There are many things 
 that go to show that lack of success with concentrated fertilizers may be 
 .entirely due to the peculiarity of the climate of the particular season in 
 which the fertilizers are used." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Use of Hot Water. 
 
 We will now treat of that feature of Mr. Cole's system when a steady 
 stream of cold water, drawn from any source, is passed through a coiled 
 pipe or boiler, and then emerging, is dropped into the trench, the stones 
 or tiling heated, and when by surface protection the winter months are, 
 to a great extent, made those of production. Let the following serve as 
 an illustration : 
 
 " A curious experiment has lately been made at Acqui, Italy, by the 
 proprietor of baths. The gentleman has at his disposal an inexhaustible 
 supply of hot water from a natural spring, the temperature being 167 de- 
 grees Fahrenheit. The surplus not required for the baths has been 
 diverted so as to flow through pipes to a garden on the outskirts of the 
 town. Here the heated water flows beneath a number of forcing frames 
 containing melons, tomatoes, asparagus, and other garden produce. The 
 result is that a supply of these delicacies is ready for market at a very 
 early period of the year, when, therefore, they fetch high prices." 
 
 Locate your coil or boiler at a point most convenient to your water 
 supply, whether it be obtained from hydrant, steam pump, or from the 
 lower trench of Mr. Cole's system established on a hillside. When the 
 more tender and delicate class of vegetables are to be grown in the winter 
 months, make the storage trenches from four to eight feet wide, and any 
 length desired, and not more than four feet apart. Use stone where avail- 
 able for their construction, and connect by the overflows : cover with 
 soil, which should here be from two to three feet deep, in order that there 
 may be room for root growth above a point when the hot waters or steam 
 will scald. Directly over the trenches build cold frames just as ordinarily 
 constructed. Turn on your water, start your fire, and you will find growth 
 can be made over them all through the year. 
 
 immediately below your cold frames extend the system as for garden 
 use, and let the hot waters flow through it. 
 
 On this ground very early growth of vegetables can be made, and a 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 57 
 
 late growth continued in the fall. Here frosts are not possible, and only 
 very hard freezing can do damage. The soil obtains heat as well as mois- 
 ture from the steam and heated stone. We have said water could be taken 
 from the lower trench of a hillside system. 
 
 The flow from such a trench will be found to be ample all through the 
 months of autumn, winter, and spring, when the rains and snows afford 
 steady supply. Mr. A. I. Root, of Medina, Ohio, publisher of the monthly 
 journal, Gleanings in Bee Culture, has adopted and made use of the sys- 
 tem, making a specialty of the hot-water feature. On the plot where he 
 uses the hot water, it is supplied with the escape steam from a manufac- 
 turing establishment, and the crops are grown in the open air. In his jour- 
 nal, under date Dec. i8th, 1886, he published the following article under 
 head of 
 
 " Five Crops a Year." 
 
 " We commenced planting seeds and putting out plants, as you may 
 remember, some time in February. Peas were planted in the open ground 
 over these reservoirs February i, and they yielded a crop of nice pods the 
 fore part of April. Cabbage plants taken from the greenhouse and put 
 beside the peas at the same date were, for a time, protected by a sash 
 to harden them off, but after two or three weeks they too were allowed to 
 stand without protection. They were repeatedly buried up in the snow, 
 but the ground did not freeze, owing to the heat underneath. The plants 
 made a vigorous growth, and were just as good as cold-frame plants, so far 
 as I could discover. A few were left on this ground, producing heads of 
 ca,bbage in April that weighed, some of them, ten pounds, and, as we re- 
 ceived for them three cents per pound, we got thirty cents for a few sin- 
 gle heads of cabbage. 
 
 After the cabbage we put on beets and lettuce, of which I have 
 written you. The lettuce sold readily in May at five cents per head each. 
 You will remember we started another crop between the rows when we 
 were maketing one crop. After the lettuce we put out cucumbers which 
 were started in the greenhouse. It took some little time for the roots to 
 get down into the reservoirs beneath ; but when they did they gave an 
 enormous crop of cucumbers, which grew so rapidly sometimes that we 
 picked them every day. These cucumbers, coming much in advance of 
 any raised in the open air, sold readily at a good price. 
 
 After the cucumbers, we raised a fine lot of turnip-plants ; and when 
 these were put out in the open field the bed was cropped with lettuce, 
 
58 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 which now covers the ground, and the plants are so large and thrifty that 
 they are an astonishment to every passer by. The year is not up yet, and 
 will not be until next February ; yet this ground has given us five paying 
 crops, and many of the crops not only paid, but paid handsomely. Of 
 course the ground was heavily manured. The two feet of soil that covered 
 the stone reservoirs contained, perhaps, six inches of manure ; but, my 
 friends, will it not pay, and especially will it not pay for those who have 
 time on their hands, with nothing to do? And this book, as you may re- 
 member, is written mainly for this class. 
 
 A squash vine, started in the greenhouse, and put out in June, made 
 very slow growth for a time, but it finally started an immense squash 
 which in time got so heavy that it broke the vine that bore it said vine 
 being run over a trellis. I told Father Cole about it, and he said I should 
 have made a platform or shelf under the squash. Another one grew to 
 an enormous size, and we finally sold about half a dozen in all from one 
 vine. The quality was excellent. 
 
 Some time in the latter part of July or fore part of August, a pump- 
 kin vine came up of itself. Nobody thought it could possibly ripen any 
 pumpkins ; but the single vine produced six, and ripened them all. The 
 growth was astonishing. I presume vines of all kinds send their roots 
 down at once into the reservoirs, and when they get there they make a 
 growth that is really surprising. Some strawberry plants were started in 
 March, and they bore a crop of fine, large berries, but we expect greater 
 results from these next season. Pie-plant promises wonderfully. We have 
 not tested the matter on asparagus, but propose to another season. 
 
 Such a plot of ground may be worked on not only evenings, but on 
 rainy days. If it rains hard, fix a temporary covering of the shutters or 
 sash, used in the winter time. Of course, the aid of exhaust steam, such 
 as we use, will not very likely be at the command of many of our readers ; 
 but this exhaust steam is of no particular use from the first of April until 
 the first of October ; and by the aid of sash we can make plants grow 
 nicely through March and October yes, and through a great part of No- 
 vember, without bottom heat, especially where we have ground that is en- 
 riched to two feet in depth. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest satisfaction I have received in the use of the 
 New Agriculture has been in making the swamp-holes and waste places 
 on our eighteen acres the most productive spots we have. When I bought 
 the place, a small stream, which we call Champion Brook, meandered 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 59 
 
 across our low ground, traveling over more than twice the distance it 
 would make in going straight across, as such brooks usually do. In fact, our 
 whole creek bottom has been at different times washed over and cut up 
 by this Champion Brook. Well, my first work, six or seven years ago, 
 was to make Champion Brook go straight from where it came on to my 
 land to the point where it passed off. This left the old creek bed, and in 
 many places it had washed great holes down to the bed rock. These 
 holes have been a bother and a nuisance until the present season. Dur- 
 ing the past summer, as I have told you, we have scooped out the con- 
 tents, clear down to the rock in many places, and I tell you it was fun to do 
 it especially as the dry season greatly favored the work. These ho'es 
 were then the receptacles for all the stone, tinware, boots and shoes, and 
 everything that could be collected on the place, and during the past sea- 
 son we have been grubbing out the stumps, and using them to fill these 
 gullies and holes. We make the surface level, then cover it with tinware, 
 or something that will not decay, then down come the banks to the sides, 
 until we can run both plow and cultivator right over them without any 
 danger of striking or tearing up the stumps or tinware. Of course these 
 holes are full of water, or, at least, as full as the outlets described in 
 Chapter V. allow them to get. We want the water to come within a foot 
 or eighteen inches of the surface of the soil, but no higher. Our crops 
 over these places have been wonderful. I was pleased to see even friend 
 Terry express his admiration and satisfaction at the looks of my potatoes, 
 celery, and other crops. Celery seems to revel in such a situation. Our 
 plants on the creek bottom are to-day looking as bright and green as they 
 have been during any part of the year, and it is now the second day of 
 November. Last week we dug some roots that weighed fully three pounds 
 each. At five cents per pound this is fifteen cents per root, which makes 
 quite a satisfactory return for the labor and capital employed. 
 
 In order to see whether our celery compared favorably with the best 
 raised anywhere else, I have had samples of the finest from Michigan, 
 from Cleveland, O., and even from the Arlington market gardens, near 
 Boston. Some of the Arlington celery weighed three pounds to the root, 
 but it was on account of the enormous suckers growing around the sides. 
 I should call ours ahead anything that we have seen. Of course, fine tilth, 
 with plenty of moisture, and not too much, are not the only things wanted; 
 we must manure also; and I think it will pay well to manure the very 
 best ground that can be found anywhere at least such is my experience. " 
 
60 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Here is evidence of the complete success and value of this system, 
 and that there is profit in its adoption. 
 
 As the hot waters are used, so can, and should be, the high temper- 
 ature waters of artesian wells, and where hot springs are found tropical 
 productions should result. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Cost and Profit of the System. 
 
 So largely will the cost of introducing this system be governed by 
 local and other considerations, that to name any fixed sum per acre is not 
 possible or wise. We will only say it can and will be covered by an 
 amount ranging from $30 to $300 per acre. When it is adopted in a sec- 
 tion where stone are plenty on the ground, and it is put in for general 
 farm purposes, and with abundant storage capacity, the work done in large 
 part by the farmer and his boys, or regularly employed help, using his 
 team and plow in starting, and, as far as possible, sinking trenches, the 
 cost per acre will not amount in money outlay to the first-named sum, 
 while the last-named will cover the outlay necessary to be made by a 
 market gardener or grower of small fruits, who applies the system in its 
 most perfect form, abundant in water supply, and in every way calculated 
 to force production to the highest possible point in quantity, size, and 
 quality. It will also cover cost of material to be used in construction 
 where purchased, sinking of trenches, and preparation of surface soil. 
 
 In calculating cost of adoption, lay out your land in form as desired. 
 Ascertain the number of trenches, fix upon the length, breadth, and depth, 
 and figure cost of excavation. If stone are used in construction, and 
 can be obtained on or near the plot, no expense will be necessary in filling, 
 other than labor of gathering and laying in the stone in sucn way as to 
 give the greatest amount of water space. If stone, tile, planking, ce- 
 ment, or other material must be purchased, ascertain the amount re- 
 quired and add to cost of trenching. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 61 
 
 Add to these the cost of laying the material to be used, labor of re- 
 covering the trenches and overflow drains, and you have the cost, approxi- 
 mately at least. 
 
 Mr. Cole, on his model, has made an outlay of a sum not exceeding 
 $300 per acre, this amount covering in full the purchase and setting of 
 the various small fruits, vines, and fruit trees now on the ground. 
 
 In the construction of the system, and fitting of the soil, every part 
 of the work was done by hired labor, and a large part of it when wages 
 were high, made so in that locality by the demand for labor which grew 
 out of the opening up of a large oil and natural gas territory. 
 
 The annual sales of small fruits and vegetables now made from this 
 plot of ground amount to a large per cent, in interest on an amount five 
 times greater than the outlay made. Five acres are now under the sys- 
 tem, produce in money value more than any fifty acres of land in Alle- 
 gany County, and perhaps in the State. Space and time will not allow us to 
 give an extended account of what Mr. Cole has accomplished, but here 
 are a few general statements : 
 
 At the time Mr. Cole began his work, his home market was supplied 
 wholly from outside sources with early vegetables and 'small fruits. He 
 now furnishes the home supply in large part, and it may be said, "he is 
 carrying coals to Newcastle," as he is now sending small fruits into the 
 markets of fruit-growing counties of Western New York, the size, quality, 
 and fine condition of his products giving them precedence over all others, 
 and the demand for them has become so great he is not able to meet it, 
 though pushing extension as fast as possible. 
 
 Competition under old methods of tillage has at various times been 
 undertaken against him only to be abandoned after a short trial. 
 
 The summer of 1888 saw the small fruit supply of Western New 
 York, with the single exception of Mr. Cole's, largely wiped out, caused 
 by the deep freezing and soil heaving of the winter before, late frosts in 
 spring, followed by severe and protracted drouths. 
 
 Contending against these combined adverse influences, Mr. Cole's 
 system carried him through, and gave him a yield of crops much in excess 
 of the best possible under old methods with all conditions in their favor. 
 
 Since adoption of the system, Mr. Cole has grown, one season with 
 another, from 300 to 500 bushels strawberries per acre, many berries 8 
 inches in circumference. 
 
 Blackberries per acre, 800 bushels. 
 
62 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Raspberries, per acre, from 400 to 600 bushels. 
 
 Potatoes, 1,200 bushels per acre. 
 
 Cabbage weighing 15 to 20 Ibs. per head. 
 
 Heads of cauliflower, of the Snow-ball variety, in twelve days from 
 the size of a walnut, to a perfect head 18 inches in diameter. 
 
 McLean's Advanced Peas, with pods 6 and 7 inches long, containing 
 peas as large as frost grapes. 
 
 Ten dollars' worth of quinces, in one season, on a single bush, five 
 years old. Some of these quinces were as large as a pint bowl. 
 
 Three cuttings of timothy and clover in a single season, at rate of 
 from three to three and a half tons to the crop. 
 
 The heads of the first cutting averaged 9 inches in length; the second, 
 8 inches ; the third, 6 inches. 
 
 Currants doubled in size and yield. 
 
 Evergreen sweet corn, the stalks of which measured 16 feet in length. 
 
 Apple and plum trees have stood under loads of fruit so great it was 
 ound necessary, early in the season, to prop every limb and branch which 
 could be reached. All these productions have been perfect in every way, 
 and absolutely free from blemish or disease. Of these productions fuller 
 accounts will be found later on, in reports made, and letters written by 
 visitors who have examined into his work and its results. 
 
 We think our readers will accordingly admit the adoption of this sys- 
 tem will be found eminently profitable to market gardeners and fruit grow- 
 ers ; in fact, will become a necessity, as in the active competition now ex- 
 isting, and which must always exist in the future, those who grow their 
 crops under methods of the new agriculture will gain a substantial advant- 
 age over their competitors, and place themselves in position of security 
 and independence of the vicissitudes of seasons. 
 
 In the home garden it will pay, since, on a very small piece of ground 
 yearly, growths of fruits and vegetables can be made which will exceed 
 the requirements of a large family. 
 
 When put in for garden and lawn, or applied to lands surrounding 
 the house, it takes up all the stagnant waters, converts their solids to so- 
 lution and gases, purifies them by causing their constant circulation, either 
 by percolation downward through the soil and from trench to trench, or 
 by capillary flow. Moving waters are always living waters, and are never 
 breeders of male-rial and typhoid infections, as are those which are stag- 
 nant. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 63 
 
 For general farm purposes its adoption will be found as profitable, as 
 a rule, as for gardening. As it increases, improves, and assures crops 
 on a small plot, so will it on large ones. 
 
 To no crops will it impart greater benefits and larger growth than to 
 those of grass, potatoes, and apples. Every farmer knows that grass is 
 the most desirable, but at the same time the most uncertain crop he can 
 raise. It costs less to produce it than any other crop when the adverse 
 influences can be obviated. 
 
 The two most fatal of these influences are drouth and heat, the one 
 depriving the crop of the moisture necessary to it, the other searing it as 
 by the breath of a furnace. Fortunately the farmer has it in his power 
 to overcome these by that system of subirrigation, which saves and stores 
 water for use when needed, gathering and imparting nutrition to the roots 
 of plants during the entire year, inspiring the utmost spring, summer, and 
 autumn growth possible. On this subject we will once more quote from 
 Mr. Henry Stewart : 
 
 " The permanent meadow is a very unusual adjunct to an American 
 farm. Our climate is not naturally well adapted to the continued growth 
 of grass. Our hot, dry summers are unfavorable. Generally it may be 
 stated as beyond question, that the yield of grass is proportionate to the 
 supply of water. As has been previously stated, no solid nutriment 
 reaches any plant except as supplied to it in solution in water. What are 
 the ultimate possibilities of growth in any crop is unknown to us, but it 
 would seem as though they depended greatly upon the supply of water 
 that can be absorbed, sufficient nutriment, of course, being provided. 
 
 Rye grass, upon irrigated fields richly fertilized, has grown at the rate 
 of one inch per day, and repeated cuttings have been made at intervals 
 of fourteen days, during a season of several months. Crops of grass 
 upon irrigated fields of a total weight of more than 80 tons per acre have 
 been reported by trustworthy English farmers in one season. 
 
 Irrigated grass fields in Italy support easily two head of fattening cat- 
 tle per acre, every year, and have long done so. In hundreds of locali- 
 ties in European countries are irrigated meadows, which have borne grass 
 without any sign of deterioration within the memory of the inhabitants, 
 or the knowledge of readers of local histories, although the crop has been 
 cut and removed every year during this indefinite period. Whether or 
 not these immense yields could be further increased by more skillful man- 
 agement is not necessary to inquire. Those products are so far beyond 
 
64 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 the dreams of an American farmer, that they may well be considered 
 fabulous. But there is no reason to doubt the facts. On the contrary, 
 they should be used as a stimulus for us to adopt, whenever practicable, 
 the methods by which these crops are produced. 
 
 The average product of grass upon our rich bottom lands, will not 
 exceed two tons per acre, and upon uplands one ton per acre is a fair 
 average yield. After a few years the best seeded of our meadows begin 
 to deteriorate and run out. 
 
 A change of crop is made, and the meadows are once more seeded 
 down, to run out again in a few years. The cause of the failure is the 
 heats an 3 drouths which follow the hay harvest, and which cause a ces- 
 sation of growth until they are past. Beneath a temperature which would 
 be genial and invigorating to plant growth with sufficient moisture, the 
 grass dies for want of the substances that water would afford. 
 
 The farms of most European countries consist of but a few acres in 
 extent. 
 
 This is notably so of Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, and Holland, 
 where a farmer who owns and cultivates twenty-five acres is looked upon 
 as a landholder of more wealth and importance, by his neighbors, than is 
 the American farmer by his countrymen, who owns and tills his hundreds. 
 
 These small farms, when owned by the cultivator, are made so produc- 
 tive by every known method of high tillage, that they place the owner 
 and his family in position of independence. Already the days of large 
 farms in this country are numbered. Owners and purchasers of farms are 
 fast finding out that one acre properly tilled is capable of returning in 
 yield more of profit than three as usually worked, and are cutting up their 
 present holdings, or making their purchases in farms of fewer acres. While 
 this is so in all parts of the country, it is particularly so in the South, 
 where the old plantations of hundreds of acres have made owners land- 
 poor and brankrupt tax-paying. 
 
 The possibilities of the small farm here are as yet unknown, and 
 when we tell our readers that five or ten acres, well cultivated, and sup- 
 plied with abundant water, will yield, in the course of ten years, as much 
 profit as fifty or a hundred acres, equally well cultivated, but without any 
 provision for the necessary moisture, we are not overdrawing the fact. 
 
 Whether owning or purchasing, will it not pay the farmer to put the 
 price of every other acre into an improvement which will give him com- 
 mand of the waters which nourish and assure his crops ? In so doing it 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 65 
 
 is within his power to increase production many fold, develop growth 
 more perfectly, command a more ready market, secure better prices, and 
 save labor and taxes. 
 
 To close this chapter, we copy the following from the pen of Prof. 
 M. A. Curtis, of Jacksonville, Fla., editor of the Florida Farmer and 
 Fruit Grower, it bearing strongly on the question of profit to be de- 
 rived from Mr. Cole's system : 
 
 " SUB-IRRIGATED GARDENS. 
 
 In the advertising of Florida as it has been carried on for a score ol 
 years, the practice has been to hold up the orange as the leading 
 attraction, while market-gardening is made to figure as a secondary 
 industry, a degree less genteel than orange growing, but a very conven- 
 ient resource for meeting current expenses 'while the grove is coming 
 into bearing.' However the other industrial resources of Florida may 
 stand the test of experience, candor compels me to say that market- 
 gardening in this State, as a rule, is as precarious an industry as can be 
 engaged in. In the neighborhood of the leading winter resorts, where 
 there is a good local demand, vegetable-growing may prove profitable, 
 especially if no severe frosts occur in winter. Strawberries pay well 
 where they are grown systematically, as at Lawtey, and good shipping 
 facilities are at hand ; but, as a rule, market-gardeners hardly recover 
 expenses. 
 
 With natural waste, stealage, and high freight-rates, the net returns 
 from market-gardening seldom exceed the expenses of packing and 
 production. Other obstacles which are encountered alike by those who 
 grow vegetables for marketing or home consumption, are found in the 
 chances of severe frosts in winter and drouth in early spring, the latter 
 amounting almost to a certainty. In the southern half of the peninsula 
 danger from frost need hardly be taken into account, but in the northern 
 half, winter gardens, which are the only ones planted for profit, are con- 
 stantly in peril. 
 
 Drouths in Florida are particularly trying on cultivated plants 
 whose feeding roots are within a foot or two of the surface. The soil 
 in nearly all parts of the State is sandy, and lacks the capillarity by 
 which soils of firm texture are enabled to withstand drouths. This 
 evil is increased by tillage, which separates the coarse particles still more 
 from each other, and it is lessened by admixture of such substances as 
 
66 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 lime and muck. On wild vegetation, growing on undisturbed land, 
 drouth seems to inflict less damage than it does in other States. With- 
 out pausing to consider these seemingly contradictory phenomena, it 
 suffices to say that the spring drouth in Florida is an obstacle that can- 
 not be overcome or counteracted except by some system of irrigation. 
 
 In a soil so porous as that of Florida surface irrigation is impracti- 
 cable. Windmills and other mechanical means of raising water are too 
 expensive, except in peculiarly favorable locations. Artesian wells are 
 most satisfactory, but they are not for poor men ; and after a flow of 
 water is obtained there arises the problem of distributing it to best 
 advantage. 
 
 On the eastern coast of Florida, at Daytona, and a few other places, 
 there has come into use within two or three years a system of sub-irriga- 
 tion, which answers admirably for what may be termed intensive garden- 
 ing, and in localities where there is good demand for garden produce. 
 It is a modification of Mr. A. N. Cole's system an adaptation of it to 
 sandy land, the principle involved being the retention of water supply 
 just beneath the roots, so that by capillary action it may readily be sup- 
 plied to them as needed. The first essential is an abundant supply of 
 water, as from an artesian well, and the second is a subterranean reser- 
 voir or trench which will retain a small quantity of water, and allow an 
 excess, as from heavy rainfall, to escape. 
 
 The productiveness of the first gardens thus irrigated was so sur- 
 prising that last winter a stock company was formed, with a capital of 
 $50,000, for the establishment of an extensive garden at Ormond. In 
 their construction parallel trenches are dug two hundred feet long by- 
 four feet wide and twenty-two inches deep, they being sixteen feet apart 
 between sides and ends. A thin mortar is then prepared, composed of 
 one part Portland cement and seven parts sand, which is poured over the 
 bottom within a rough curbing of loose boards. After being smoothed 
 to a level by drawing a short piece of timber over it, this bed is allowed 
 three days to harden. Then a border is made all around by pouring 
 the same kind of mortar between two courses of boards four inches 
 wide, set on edge one inch apart, the space within the border meas- 
 uring two hundred feet long by three feet wide. After the sides have 
 been left three days longer to harden, the inner boards are removed and 
 the whole inner surface receives a thin coat of pure cement, in order 
 that it may be water-tight. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 67 
 
 At either end of the cemented bottom are set wooden boxes six 
 inches square, rising six inches above the surface of the ground. Through 
 these the gardener may see how much water is in the trench, and regulate 
 the supply accordingly. Next to these are laid lengthwise of the ce- 
 mented bottom five courses of narrow inch boards. Crosswise of these a 
 second layer of boards is put on closer together than the first. Then 
 Palmetto leaves are laid over the boards and the trench is filled in with 
 earth. The water from the well is led through the garden in two-inch 
 pipes and distributed to the beds in half-inch pipes, which open through 
 faucets in one of the boxes that lead to the bottom of each bed. 
 
 It is found that by keeping up the supply of water in the trenches 
 the ground over and between them is kept sufficiently moist in the driest 
 weather, and that a most luxuriant growth of vegetables can be obtained. 
 In order to economize space, different kinds of vegetables are planted in 
 alternate rows for example, several rows of beets, radishes, and lettuce 
 between two rows of cabbages. A close succession is kept up also, the 
 intention being to have the ground constantly and fully occupied with the 
 most profitable varieties. The cost of such beds is considerable, but it 
 is found that one measuring four by fifty feet can be prepared for $15 or 
 $20, and this affords a garden spot sixteen by sixty-six feet in area, on 
 which may be grown a very large quantity of vegetables of quality and 
 size not obtainable in any ordinary garden. An acre of ground thus pre- 
 pared costs $1,000, but it is believed that it will produce to the value of 
 $3,000 in a year. The length of the growing season in Florida is greatly 
 in favor of this system, and it is not improbable that it will come into 
 general use in localities where there is large demand for fresh vegetables 
 in winter and spring. It is, of course, equally well adapted for flower 
 gardens." A. H. CURTISS. 
 
 Jacksonville, Fla. 
 
 In the above article this method is spoken of as being a modification 
 of Mr. Cole's system. This is an error. It is his system pure and simple ; 
 principle, method, and materials used all being covered by him. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. Cole's Home and Model Plot. 
 
 At Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y., on the line of the Erie R. R., 
 and in the Upper Genessee Valley, is the now far-famed " Home on the 
 Hillside," where dwells and works Mr. A. N. Cole, the originator and de- 
 monstrator of this new system of agriculture. 
 
 Here is located his model, which now comprises about five acres, and 
 here results of production have been accomplished, which astonish be- 
 holders, and exceed anything heretofore realized by any method of til- 
 lage. Here, in midsummer, can undoubtedly be seen a greater wealth 
 of production than can be found on any equal area, not under glass, in 
 America, and here have the benefits and results claimed for this system 
 in the foregoing pages been accomplished and demonstrated. 
 
 The location is a sightly one, the house a solid, comfortable, and 
 attractive home ; but the lands surrounding it, in their original condition, 
 could not well have been more unpromising or unproductive. 
 
 It is a strong, clay soil, underlaid by hardpan, and Allegany hard- 
 pan is proverbial for reaching the third rail in the fence. Situated on a 
 hillside, his land was washed, gullied, and cut up by the rains and melting 
 snows of winter, remaining wet and cold all through the spring, and until 
 the summer sun baked it into crusts or lumps almost impossible to pul- 
 verize. A scanty growth of white daisies, Canada thistles, and coarse 
 grass was the only crop it seemed capable of producing, even under the 
 best methods of cultivation which could be applied to it. In the spring 
 of 1882, Mr. Cole began quietly, and unknown to any outside of his own 
 family, to construct, on the steepest and poorest of his land, a model of 
 the system he had evolved by years of study, observation, and experi- 
 ment. But a small plot was completed in this year, but the results from 
 it equaled and surpassed Mr. Cole's most sanguine hopes and expecta- 
 tions. Eighteen hundred and eighty-three saw this little spot of ground 
 producing vegetables and fruits largely in excess of the amount which 
 could be used by Mr. Cole's family, and the surplus was put into the 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 69. 
 
 home market, where their size, beauty, and perfection attracted the at- 
 tention of the public, and brought people in large numbers to see his 
 work and ways. During the spring, summer, and fall of 1883 and 1884, 
 the work of trenching, fitting, and setting small fruits was carried on as 
 rapidly as means and competent operatives could be found with which to 
 do the work. The end of the year 1884 found about two acres completed, 
 not perfectly by any means, as some indifferent workmen had disobeyed 
 orders in essential regards, and in others had done their work in a most 
 careless way. 
 
 In the month of July, 1885, a formal introduction of the system was 
 made to the world. On the yth day of that month there gathered at Mr. 
 Cole's home about one hundred of the leading farmers, professional men, 
 and representatives of the press. 
 
 By these a careful, thorough, and exhaustive examination of soil. crop,, 
 plant, fruit, and system was made, and in every instance their comments 
 and reports were flattering in the extreme to Mr. Cole, his work, and meth- 
 ods. Some of these reports we will now give, as they answer the double pur- 
 pose of showing Mr. Cole's methods and the results. The reader will notice 
 that in the preceding pages, not a claim is made for this system that is 
 not supported by reported results made by men who had or have no in- 
 terest in the system in a pecuniary point of view. 
 
 The opinion of Dr. I. P. Roberts, of Ithaca, expressed to Mr. Cole, 
 was as follows: "Yes, Mr. Cole, you do all you claim to accomplish. 
 You gather the waters into your reservoirs and pass them through the 
 soil rather than leaving them to run riot along the surface. You trans- 
 form this hitherto shunned and dreaded hardpan into soft, porous, pro-- 
 ductive, and best of soils to the depth of your trenches, thereby enabling 
 the roots of vegetation to descend deeply into the earth. You remove 
 the stone operating as obstructions and diseasing the roots of plants, 
 putting the stone where they will do the most good. You provide 
 against floods and drouths ; and to a great extent, if not wholly, defeat 
 the effects of frost." 
 
 Extract from the report appearing in the Buffalo Express : 
 
 ' Yesterday was a notable day for Wellsville, or at least for one of 
 its most widely-known inhabitants. Nestled away among the ragged 
 Allegany hills, this snug town of about 4,000 people has in common 
 with the rest of the world its ambitions and its celebrities. The par- 
 ticular industry that yesterday took along stride towards popular recor- 
 
70 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 nition and favor is one growing up on the western hill of the town, and 
 known as Coles's system of underground irrigation. Reckoned either 
 as a freak or curiosity, or better than both of these, as a step into the 
 next century in the domain of agriculture, this little plot of five acres 
 of land, only two of which are as yet developed, will bear the closest 
 inspection of either the skeptic or willing convert. 
 
 But perhaps everybody is not aware of the system, now under 
 practical trial, which promises to revolutionize the world's agriculture 
 nay, according to its enthusiastic author, has already done so. Some 
 four years ago Mr. A. N. Cole, better known as the 'father of the Re- 
 publican party,' and the veteran editor of the Genessee Valley Free Press, 
 began to put in operation a system of agriculture based on underground 
 irrigation, an idea entirely his own. He had been studying the system 
 a number of years before that time, but had not until then carried it into 
 practice. There were drawbacks that need not be mentioned here ; and 
 there was of course a town full of people who laughed at the idea as a 
 crazy notion sure to come to nothing. But Mr. Cole persevered, and it 
 is safe to say that yesterday he was able to demonstrate his success so 
 entirely as to ensure him the title of the proudest man in Western New 
 York, and perhaps out of it as well." 
 
 From beginning to end of a two-column article, commendatory 
 throughout, the correspondent of The Express drew a faithful picture of 
 what he saw on this occasion. 
 
 Report of Mr. Charles A. Green, a special correspondent of the 
 N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 After a few preliminary remarks, Mr. Green said : 
 
 " Mr. Cole has been studying irrigation since he was seventeen 
 years old, but his present system flashed upon him within the past few 
 years. He has not yet extended his working model over more than two 
 to three acres. I shall attempt to explain what I saw, and to state the 
 claims of Mr. Cole as clearly as I can, considering our brief and fre- 
 quently interrupted conversation. 
 
 We were first shown a patch of strawberries containing nearly two 
 acres. These plants were grown in hills about eighteen inches apart 
 each way, mulched with forest leaves, liberally fertilized with yard ma- 
 nure, and irrigated after the new method. I was told by the former 
 owner of the hillside that when he sold it to Mr. Cole it was an unpro- 
 ductive piece of ground. The soil proper was not over ten or twelve 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 71 
 
 inches deep and rested upon a tenacious, clayey hardpan this was im- 
 pervious to water. He said the frost acted so seriously upon this soil, 
 on account of the surplus water not being able to escape through the 
 subsoil, that it was almost impossible to keep plants alive in it during 
 winter. Even the fence posts would be thrown out by the frosts in a 
 very short time. A prominent contractor, who was walking by my side 
 at the time, said that all that section of the country was underlaid by 
 this peculiar subsoil, which is a great drawback to plant growth. I was 
 also informed by this same gentleman that this part of Allegany County 
 was not favorable for strawberry-growing, or other fruit except apples ; 
 and that the supply of small fruits is received largely from other sections. 
 Mr. Cole has planted numerous varieties of strawberries upon his side- 
 hill, among which I recognized the Bidwell, Sharpless, and other familiar 
 varieties. The fruit was of an astonishing size, and grew in great abund- 
 ance. While I live in a strawberry country, and am myself a strawberry 
 grower, I cannot remember when I have seen so fine a display of straw- 
 berries growing upon the vines as I saw here. There were, however, 
 evidences of high culture. A gentleman by my side echoed my senti- 
 ments by remarking that we could increase the size of fruits in our own 
 gardens by such thorough cultivation as this. Adjoining the strawberries 
 were growing different kinds of garden crops ; also currants, raspberries, 
 blackberries, potatoes, and a few fruit trees. At one point, where the 
 ground was terraced, I noticed, growing on the rugged edge, a row of 
 onions. I called attention to the fact that while these onions were on 
 the very brink, there was no indication of their being disturbed by wash- 
 ing of the soil, as might have been expected in such a position. In fact, 
 everything showed that in no place had the rainfall run down the surface 
 as ordinarily, to the detriment of everything growing thereon, as the 
 water passed into the drains underlying." 
 
 Report of Mr. R. S. Lewis, of the Progressive Batavian: 
 " Mr. Cole's farm, consisting of five acres of what was four years ago, 
 and a part of which is now, a sterile hillside of clayey soil, so poor as to 
 grudgingly yield sufficient substance to grow field daisies. It is as steep 
 as the steepest part of Burleigh Hill Pavillion, the Bethany hill just east 
 of the Center, or any other hill in Genesee County of which we have any 
 knowledge ; and as to its ever becoming profitably productive, we don't 
 believe there is a foot of land in all our county which was equally un- 
 promising. Some thirty years ago Mr. Cole conceived the idea that 
 
72 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 plant life might be greatly, almost immeasurably, stimulated by under- 
 ground irrigation. He had neither time nor opportunity then to perfect 
 and test his thought, but it continued to simmer through him, and to re- 
 call itself to his attention again and again as the years passed on. 
 
 His conviction on the matter was greatly strengthened and stimu- 
 lated by a conversation with Mr. Horace Greeley, in which that gentle- 
 man told him what he had heard of the wondrous productiveness near 
 Los Angeles, Cal., where vegetation was fed by a subterranean river. Mr. 
 Cole had thought and investigated until he had no doubt about the fact 
 of a theory; but how to accomplish the irrigation how to make his 
 thought practical was the question. 
 
 At last how to do it dawned suddenly upon him ; the mists of 
 questionings and doubts were gone ; his dream of the years had material- 
 ized ; his vision was clear. Where could he better test and demonstrate 
 the truth and value of his discovery than on his own sterile, unpromising 
 hillside ? Along its eastern front runs a highway, with wayside gutter ad- 
 joining his land. Parallel with this, and some forty to fifty feet apart, and 
 across about half his land to its highest boundary, he caused a series of 
 trenches, about two and one-half feet wide by four and a half to five feet 
 deep, to be dug, and filled to within eighteen inches of the surface with 
 coarse large stone, covered with loose flat stone, for subterranean water 
 reservoirs. These reservoirs were connected by numerous shallow and 
 smaller trenches partly filled with small stones at about eighteen inches 
 from the surface, and designed to carry off from trench to tiench all sur- 
 plus water. After the laying of the stone all the trenches, large and 
 small, are covered with straw, or litter of any kind, as in ordinary ditch- 
 ing, and then covered with the soil again. Thus each large trench is a 
 reservoir capable of holding from two to two and a half feet of water, 
 through its entire length before it reaches the height where carried off by 
 the cross trenches. The waters from the rains and melting snows, in- 
 stead of passing off in surface rills and channels, is caught in these 
 reservoirs and slowly and continuously filters through the soil from trench 
 to trench sweats through it, so to speak, rendering it porous, pliab'e, 
 spongy always sufficiently damp to feed and stimulate vegetation to the 
 highest degree, and yet always sufficiently dry to be in the best possible 
 order for cultivation. 
 
 On a part of his plantation which Mr. Cole has thus treated, he 
 last year cut three crops of timothy grass, each crop being in the head 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 73 
 
 when cut. Most of the trenched ground is now planted with blackberry 
 and raspberry bushes and strawberry vines. What the berry bushes will 
 do yet is only conjectural they have a strong, healthy, prominent develop- 
 ment but the strawberry vines, it is utterly impossible to describe their 
 wondrous wealth of productiveness. The vines are literally loaded with 
 berries, and their average size is marvelous. Many were readily found 
 which measured nearly eight inches in circumference, and there were no 
 small berries. Mr. Cole proudly said : I have berries this year as large 
 as peaches. He claimed he would harvest this year more bushels of 
 strawberries from his vines than any farmer would grow bushels of pota- 
 toes from the same area of ground. 
 
 One or two facts more are worthy of mention. First. While the 
 land all around this plot was frozen several feet deep last winter, this 
 ground was not frozen the plants grew the winter through. 
 
 2d. One of the deluging rains, so prevalent this season, poured down 
 upon Wellsville a few days since, and while the hillsides all around were 
 furrowed and ditched by the running waters, this plot was not washed in 
 the least. The torrents sank into its porous soil, and were caught in its 
 reservoirs, and the surplus passed off through its transverse trenches with- 
 out in the least disturbing its surface or the crops grown thereon." 
 
 Extract from the report of Mr. James McCann, President, and Mr. 
 G. W. Hoffman, ex-President of the Farmers' Club of Elmira. Mr. Mc- 
 Cann, since President of New York State Agricultural Society. 
 
 The opening of the report being descriptive of the construction of 
 the system, we omit that part. 
 
 "The soil is what I may call clay loam, with stones intermixed, but 
 no appearance of sand, the close, compact subsoil not easily penetrated. 
 
 I refer to condition before treatment, and of this I had fair opportu- 
 nity to observe in the adjoining land not yet brought under the new sys- 
 tem ; also in an excavation in progress where workmen had to strike 
 heavy blows with their picks to penetrate the hard clay. The land treated 
 by Mr. Cole was originally part of a considerable tract that was regarded 
 as extremely poor, and my observations lead me to conclude that the es- 
 timate was just. The most striking effect of the treatment, as it seemed 
 to me, was entire change of character, particularly mechanical condition, 
 due, in large part, no doubt, to the very thorough manipulation, for it is 
 not comprised in the trenching alone. 
 
 The entire area is dug up to the depth of fifteen: inches, and all 
 
74 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. , 
 
 stones of any considerable size, even down to an inch in diameter, re- 
 moved, thus changing mechanical conditions to such a degree that one is 
 impressed with the great difference between the land treated and that im- 
 miately adjoining. 
 
 You step upon the trenched land anywhere and you find the soil 
 yields to pressure of the feet, not a spot where it is not soft and yielding ; 
 but on the land adjoining, it is hard, and the foot makes no impression 
 whatever. 
 
 Another change is in color. That hard, forbidding clay, has taken 
 the appearance of muck, or, at least, the color of muck and loam inter- 
 mixed. Its texture is aptly described by Mr. Cole, who calls it an earth- 
 sponge. 
 
 We were called to examine strawberries from plants set, as we were 
 informed, last October, and I am free to say that the plat was a very in- 
 teresting object, inviting study. There was a full crop of most remarkable 
 berries remarkable in size, color, and quality. I cannot undertake to 
 estimate the yield, but it was certainly very large. I called Mr. McCann's 
 attention to one plant of older setting that had ripe berries, and others 
 in the various stages of growth, enough, I thought, to fill my hat if they 
 could be picked at one time. One peculiarity of these berries was the 
 absence of what may be termed a core, or hard stem in the middle ; they 
 were juicy and tender all the way through. As to foliage, I can only say 
 that I never saw anything like it. I measured a leaf that was five and 
 one-half inches across, and I plucked a broader one, with Mr. Cole's con- 
 sent, and brought it home. 
 
 I must say that the changes wrought in the soil and its products 
 constituted a great surprise. 
 
 As to the soil, I could judge by comparison with land that mtst 
 have been originally of the same character. It now lies hard and com- 
 pact adjoining the renovated earth, that, under Mr. Cole's treatment, has 
 certainly become very fertile, whether with manure in abundant supply, 
 or not, I am not prepared to say. The soil under treatment has the ap- 
 pearance of being thoroughly enriched with manure ; then there is the 
 water supply for the roots to reach and use, obviating drouth apparently, 
 and, besides, there is entire freedom from washing. Heavy showers had 
 fallen in the week before our arrival, but there was not the slightest ap- 
 pearance of washing, and Mr. Cole informed us that all danger from wash- 
 ing was obviated; a statement which I can accept as true, for he has 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 75 
 
 provided reservoirs into which all surplus of water must pass, and if there 
 is too much the overflow runs from one to another reservoir. Besides all 
 this, the earth worked to find tilth serves as a sponge to take in a great 
 deal of moisture and retain it for the use of the plants. 
 
 When I see a crop of strawberries much larger than I have ever 
 seen under other conditions, no dead leaves, no runners, growth most 
 luxuriant, and long succession in bearing, I must say that results are con- 
 vincing. There were other proofs, about which I am not so well pre- 
 pared to judge. For instance, an apple tree standing on this improved 
 land was reported worthless, its fiuit gnarled and valuless before the land 
 was trenched, now bearing largely and fruit of fine quality. Of course, 
 I cannot say how much difference there is between the tree as it now ap- 
 pears and as it was before the land was improved. I observed, however, 
 a young tree, the trunk five or six inches in diameter, perhaps, its growth 
 most vigorous, the limbs smooth as if recently washed with lye, foliage 
 fresh, full and green. 
 
 On inquiry I learned that it had only ordinary treatment, the limbs 
 had not been washed, and its vigorous growth was attributed to the sys- 
 tem of trenching and irrigating that increased the yield of strawberry 
 plants and the size of fruit, the effect being visible in growth of all 
 kinds." 
 
 There is no better place than right here to say that the change in the 
 soil, noted by Mr. Hoffman, change in color, richness, texture, and all, 
 was not the result of working it over, or of manures applied. Since the 
 date of his visit, the trenches have been extended over lands where they 
 have not had this thorough working, and no top dressings of manure have 
 been applied, and yet these same changes have appeared in the soil, and 
 the same results to vegetation. 
 
 Letter from the late Hon. John Swinburne, ex-Member of Con- 
 gress, Mayor of Albany, and at one time Health Officer of the Port of 
 New York. In professional life he stood in the front rank of American 
 physicians and surgeons. 
 
 "ALBANY, May ;th, 1885. 
 HON. A. N. COLE : 
 
 Dear Sir : After quite thorough examination and consideration of 
 your invention, or system, styled by you 'The New Agriculture,' I 
 have become deeply interested in the matter, and beg leave by letter to 
 express to you the impressions I have formed in reference to it. 
 
7 6 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Careful thought about the system impels me to the conclusion that 
 as a plan for the storage and preservation of waters for irrigation, and 
 purposes of general use, it demands and merits far more attention at the 
 hands of farmers, gardeners, and the public generally than has as yet 
 been given to it. 
 
 In a country like ours in the eastern, southern, and central por- 
 tions fast filling up with large cities, and villages, and thickly populated 
 neighborhoods the question of the most available means of obtaining a 
 proper and sufficient supply of water for mechanical, manufacturing, and 
 household purposes, and for protection against fires, is calling to its 
 consideration the earnest attention and careful study of many of our 
 ablest scientists and most practical thinkers ; while to agriculturists, 
 manufacturers, and mill owners generally, in these sections, the very 
 perceptible decrease in the volume of our rivers, creeks, and other irri- 
 gating streams upon the sufficiency of the supply of water from which 
 they have been compelled heretofore (some in part and others wholly), 
 to depend for success in their various avocations, has been to many of 
 them the cause of great diminution of business, and business profits, 
 and to others a subject of deepest anxiety. 
 
 The reduction of our forests, it is said (and very properly, too), has 
 resulted in a consequent reduction of our rivers and streams, which 
 were once freely navigable from their mouths nearly to their sources, 
 until they are now only kept open for commerce, in many parts, by the 
 application of great labor and large expenditures of money almost 
 continually. As have failed these large streams, so have their smaller 
 tributaries (from which they all, in fact, derive their supplies), become 
 less in volume, until at length farms which were once properly and 
 abundantly watered, are now comparatively without supply, and streams 
 which once furnished sufficient water-power for the running of mills and 
 factories, now scarcely afford power sufficient to propel the churns of 
 farmers, occupying their banks. The depreciation in the value of lands 
 in many parts of the country for agricultural purposes, and the supply of 
 crops therefrom and from the same cause, has become equally percepti- 
 ble. Yet, the supply of water from the clouds, from rains and snows, 
 has not, so far as we know, in any way decreased ; but the forests are 
 not here to husband them, and these waters are permitted to soak into 
 the ground, or run to waste from the surface almost as soon as they 
 strike the earth. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 77 
 
 The problem heretofore has been how best to secure and husband 
 these supplies by artificial means, so as to most effectually preserve them 
 for the vast demands of our wonderfully increasing population, for 
 family and business purposes, and especially so as to make them more 
 useful in the cultivation of the soil. 
 
 Many able and ingenious thinking men have for a long time given 
 this question their attention ; and many plans have been suggested 
 some of greater and some of less merit, but all accompanied with an 
 apparent intricacy of detail, and weight of expense in their application, 
 which has prevented the general or considerable adoption of either. 
 
 But you, Mr. Cole, seemed at last to have discovered a scheme, 
 plain and practical in itself, and evidently of but moderate expense in its 
 adoption to the uses and necessities of a very large proportion of the 
 people who are now suffering severely from the evils to which I have 
 above called attention. You style your system l The New Agriculture,' 
 and from its probable effect upon agricultural districts in which it may 
 be hereafter adopted, as indicated by the experiments you have already 
 made, the name would not seem to be in any way misapplied. If the 
 result of its use in general should be an increase in crops and vegetation, 
 to but half the extent foreshadowed or promised by those experiments 
 (and I can see no sufficient reason why your claims in this respect may 
 not be fully verified by practical application of your plan), you have de- 
 veloped and now offered to the country and the race a new system for 
 husbanding the falling waters, and a new plan for their use which will not 
 only establish a new era in agriculture, but which may be so used as to 
 afford the needed supply of good, healthful, and pure water for the 
 other ordinary uses of life to very many sections of the earth, where the 
 inhabitants are now suffering disadvantages, and privations from its 
 want. 
 
 Your plan of invention is exceedingly simple in detail, and the 
 greatest wonder to any one who shall see or read of it will be that it had 
 not been thought of, developed, and adopted long before. It bears the 
 impress of reason and sound sense upon its first presentation to the mind, 
 and more mature reflection upon its merits only results in more strongly 
 developing these characteristics in it. The scientist and the plow-boy 
 alike can each, with equal promptness and facility, perceive its scheme 
 and merits at a glance; and the person who proposes to use it on his farm 
 or garden, or in connection with his shop, dwelling-house, mill, or factory 
 
78 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 will not require the assistance of the scientific and mathematical know- 
 ledge of the civil engineer or architect to enable him to put it in successful 
 operation, the brains of an astute accountant to estimate its cost, or the 
 eye or mind of the learned student of nature to discover its results. Com- 
 bining in itself a plan for the accomplishment of these objects highly es- 
 sential to the comfoit, convenience, and business interests of the people 
 storage of water, irrigation, and drainage it will be seen at once, by even 
 the ordinary mind, upon the most casual inspection, to be practicable and 
 feasible for either purpose ; and it must be equally evident that great ad- 
 vantages must accrue to the user of the system, either for agricultural 
 purposes, the storage of water for other general uses, or as a means of 
 drainage simply. 
 
 Scarcely a township exists in our country in which there are not 
 many farms upon which your admirable system could be applied to great 
 advantage and profit. Large portions of territory in agricultural districts 
 are now entirely useless, or at least comparatively unproductive, by reason 
 of insufficient irrigation, and these, through the appliance of your ' New 
 Agriculture,' could be made vastly more productive ; while the present 
 productive portions would be increased in productive power through the 
 same instrumentality. To the grape and other fruit growers it seems to 
 me it affords especial inducement for use, which will speedily bring it 
 into imperative demand with the large majority of this important business 
 class. Through it thousands of agriculturists, in every State, may easily, 
 and with little expense, make their barren wastes to smile with produc- 
 tiveness, and the better portions of their farms to double in value by 
 reason of increase in crops. 
 
 But the advantages from the use of your plan in storage of water for 
 other than agricultural purposes are equally apparent, and must eventu- 
 ally bring it into active demand and use in localities where the supply of 
 water is now insufficient for the requirements of cities and villages ; and 
 by its application many such corporations will be enabled to furnish their 
 citizens with good, cool, and pure water in sufficient quantities, and at far 
 less expense than they can by any other plan or system now known. Of 
 course, whether it can be so utilized as to furnish very large cities with 
 sufficient supply is a problem hereafter to be demonstrated ; but in our 
 own State (and without doubt in every other State) there are hundreds 
 of small cities and thickly populated villages and hamlets, whose inhabi- 
 tants are now suffering great inconvenience, and incurring risks of sick- 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 79 
 
 ness and death from malarial and epidemic diseases from insufficient 
 supplies of healthful and pure water, whose surroundings are such that, 
 by the reasonable application of your simple system for collection and 
 storage of water, they could each, at much less cost than in any other 
 way, be furnished with a permanent and sufficient quantity of the best of 
 water for all the purposes for which it may be required by them. Then, 
 too, the hills or mountains surrounding or adjoining these places, often 
 now utterly unproductive, and sometimes even unsightly in appearance, 
 can, by this same plan, be transformed into productive and ornate terraced 
 gardens, far excelling in products and profit the ordinary agricultural 
 lands of the neighborhood, and rivaling in beauty the most famous of the 
 ornamental gardens of the old world, presenting at all times a 'thing of 
 beauty* to the eye, season by season, affording more profitable remuner- 
 ation to their owners from the crops, and fruits, and vegetables which shall 
 spring from and adorn their slopes ; and at the same time and always 
 affording to the inhabitants of the populous places beneath their shades 
 a bountiful supply of Heaven's best and only beverage for man. 
 
 I am confident that your system will grow in popularity with its 
 use ; and eventually a grateful people, thankful for the blessings your in- 
 vention has brought to their hands, will rank you as a benefactor of the 
 human race, who has not only succeeded in making two blades of grass 
 grow where one was wont to appear ; but who has also taught them by 
 simple method, and at cheapest cost, the way to secure for themselves a 
 sufficiency of one of the most important of God's gifts to man, and beast, 
 and nature. 
 
 This letter requires no answer ; it is written in testifying appreci- 
 ation of the merits of the invention of an old friend, and he is at liberty 
 to use it as he may deem proper. 
 
 With sentiments of respect, I am, as ever, yours truly, 
 
 JOHN SWINBURNE." 
 
 Mr. Cole's present residence was built by Mr. Wm. Pooler still a 
 resident of Wellsville, and the farm, which contains about 50 acres, was 
 owned by him. Visiting the place and noting the change in soil and pro- 
 duction since Mr. Cole perfected his system, he sent the following com- 
 munication : 
 
 " I think it was about 1850 that I purchased the place on which you 
 now live. The hillside had been cleared for several years, being one of 
 
8o DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 the earliest lots improved in what is now Wellsville, then the town of 
 Scio. There was an old orchard on the place, and also a tree, which I 
 shall never forget. It was not in the orchard, but stood by itself, a little 
 to the north-west of the house and was a Roxbury russet ; no more worth- 
 less fruit could have been anywhere found. Yesterday, September 22, 
 1885, I plucked from this tree two apples; one, the smallest I could find, 
 the other of average size of those of which the tree was so loaded as to 
 bow its branches to the ground upon which the lower limbs rested. I 
 should judge there were twenty-five bushels of apples on this tree, two- 
 thirds grown. These apples, on the first of October in the years i8'53, 
 1854, and 1855 did not average larger than crab apples at that time of 
 year. They were not so large at harvesting as the small one I picked 
 yesterday, nor were they quarter as large as most of the apples on the 
 tree at this time. The tree was then about ten years old, and was cov- 
 ered with moss, and in all respects of no value, and I threatened, at the 
 time, to cut it down as a cumberer of the ground. I should guess that 
 the tree might possibly have borne two bushels of apples in a bearing 
 year, and we did not pretend to gather them. 
 
 The apples now on the tree are large, fine, and fair; in fact, they 
 are the finest russets I ever saw. 
 
 You showed me early rose potatoes, grown this year, the like of 
 which I never saw anywhere. Some of these weighed from a pound to a 
 pound and a, half apiece, and I should think one would weigh two pounds. 
 You assured me that you had grown them at the rate of over one thou- 
 sand bushels to the acre the present season, and I have no reason to 
 doubt it. As there is no fungus on your grounds there is no rot. The 
 tomatoes, all over the town, are rotting, but I did not observe any rotten 
 ones on your place, and I certainly never saw such splendid fruit, nor any- 
 thing like as many to the plant. 
 
 I gave you an account of my experiment with two acres of pota- 
 toes in 1854, and here repeat it. The plot in which I planted is a por- 
 tion of the ground now embraced in your garden, on which this year has 
 been grown such crops as I never set eyes on before. I fitted these two 
 acres with greater care and painstaking than any equal amount of ground 
 in my life, mixing a portion of the subsoil with the surface, and covered 
 it deep with well-rotted barnyard manure, making it very rich. A care- 
 ful man and a good farmer planted the two acres to potatoes on halves, 
 and I realized just thirty bushels for my half. This completely discour- 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 81 
 
 aged me, and though there was no better house in Wellsville than the one 
 I had built upon the place, and the barn was nearly new, I gave up, and 
 sold the property for what I could get. You told me yesterday that you 
 valued your two acres completed at $5.000 an acre, and that it was pay- 
 ing well at that. As $5,000, at 6 per cent, interest, only gives $300, I 
 do not wonder; since I am sure you are getting two or three times that 
 from an acre. I have seen these strawberries and other fruits and vege- 
 tables as sold in this market for the last three or four years, and have 
 eaten of the fruit, and have never seen anything anywhere near as large, 
 beautiful, and fine flavored. 
 
 You yesterday showed me pods of peas, and I carried home speci- 
 mens with eight peas in a pod, of such marvelous size as to astonish me. 
 The peas were of the dwarf variety, as shown by the vines, and yet they 
 were as large as Delaware grapes. You assured me you grew five hun- 
 dred bushels of pods to the acre of these peas, and I believe you, since 
 your Champion of England, on vines higher than any man's head, loaded 
 with pods, and still covered with blossoms, presented such a sight as I 
 never saw before. Your squashes, beets, cabbage, and cauliflower were 
 all very fine ; and as for squashes, I never saw anything in my life so 
 astonishing. Though quinces are rarely grown in Allegany County, 1 
 saw as fine ones as I ever came across anywhere. 
 
 Nothing so much surprised me as the change wrought in the soil. 
 The cold clay and hardpan had been turned into a soil, deep, soft, and 
 very rich, growing all forms of plants, bushes, and trees to perfection. 
 You say your system wipes out the hardpan, and it certainly does. 
 
 This latter feature of your plan surprises me more than any other, 
 but perhaps I should except from this your spring brook, and that stream 
 of pure cold water flowing out from the pipe in the rear of the house, 
 there being no springs on this part of the place. Nobody can look down 
 into your trenches when open, and see the long stretches of spring water 
 in them as I did, and not discover that you save all the water which falls 
 upon the hillside, using what is needed for the growing crop, and the 
 remainder, by far the greater portion, running off in purity. Though be- 
 fore my visit of yesterday I was convinced your system was a success, I 
 left your place prepared to say what I now do. 
 
 Your discovery has no equal, nor do I believe anything will here- 
 after be discovered so important to health and prosperity of the people. 
 
 WILLIAM POOLER." 
 
82 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 In a letter bearing date, March 28th, 1885, addressed to Mr. Cole, 
 the Hon. C. R. Early, one of the most celebrated among physicians of 
 the Keystone State, and none more eminent to be found anywhere in 
 knowledge of causes and effects of fungoid infections, the Doctor, among 
 other things, says : 
 
 "You may remember, in the last of June, 1883, while I was in 
 Wellsville, I was invited to dine at your ' Home on the Hillside,' in 
 company with several other parties interested in developing the oil. gas, 
 and timber resources of Northern Pennsylvania, and Western New York. 
 
 At your table we were much astonished to see the most delicious 
 fresh peas, just picked from the vines, and the finest strawberries that all 
 acknowledged ever having seen. The question was asked : 
 
 'Where do you get such fine peas?' Your answer was : 'They 
 were picked from my own garden.' 
 
 ' Where do you get such berries ?' 
 
 ' They are also picked from my own garden.' 
 
 'Come, now, Mr. Cole, that will never do. I was raised in Alle- 
 gany County. This is too early in the season for either peas or straw- 
 berries. Besides, Allegany never produced such peas and berries as 
 these.' 
 
 Your reply was, that this was the fruit of your system of under- 
 ground irrigation. You then explained to us your system of sinking 
 troughs in the ground, and taking up the water as it fell, and holding it 
 back to supply moisture to vegetation as it was required. This was en- 
 tirely a new feature to us all ; and, after dinner, we repaired to your 
 garden, a lot on the hillside, where you explained to us your system in 
 detail. The more I examined the more I was astonished to find every 
 bush, twig, stalk, tree, and fruit perfectly clean and healthy. No rust or 
 fungi of any kind whatever was to be found. You showed us a stream 
 of water coming from the trenches, a continuous, bright, and sparkling 
 brook, and yet it was a dry time ; quite a drouth. But in spite of all 
 this, we found a stream of water coming from your hillside constantly, 
 with no spring to feed it only coming from the stored-up rains and dews 
 that fell, caught up and garnered by these troughs, furnishing a constant 
 vapor to the roots of your vegetables and plants, keeping them in uniform 
 condition of moisture ; never too wet, never too dry. This system made 
 a very deep impression upon me, and upon returning home and thinking 
 the matter over, you will remember I wrote you a letter, suggesting that 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 83 
 
 by the use of natural gas (which must take the place of coal and wood 
 for heating purposes) to heat the water in the Fall and Spring, and 
 running steam pipes through the troughs (or dropping the warm water 
 into them; to keep the water warm, you might raise all kinds of produce, 
 and, as it were, do away with Winter. You could do, as I found while 
 in Europe was done there produce the finest pineapples by use of this 
 warm-water system, thus doing away with expensive hot-houses. In this 
 letter I also suggested, that, where you wished to raise tropical fruits, 
 you could throw a canvass over the space to keep off the winds and 
 snows. All this was in the most part a joke, as applied to Allegany, 
 but upon receiving your reply, I was astounded to read that you had al- 
 ready obtained a patent covering these points. 
 
 On the second day of July last, I was again in Wellsville. In pass- 
 ing through the streets I noticed on the corner baskets of strawberries ; 
 some were small, diseased-looking berries, but alongside of them were 
 luscious ones, nearly as large as peaches. Said I : 
 
 ' Ho& much are your strawberries ?' 
 
 * These are sold at thirteen cents, and these at twenty-five a 
 quart,' was the answer made by the vender. 
 
 ' But why should there be such a difference in price ? ' I inquired. 
 ' Why! these are Cole's berries.' 
 . ' Cole's berries ! What do you mean by Cole's berries ?' 
 
 * Why ! they are raised here in town by Mr. Cole.' 
 k Who is Mr. Cole ? ' 
 
 1 What ! don't you know A. N. Cole ? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! yes ; he has been termed the father of the Republican 
 party. So he raised these berries here in town ? Well. I do know A. 
 N. Cole, and I think he has succeeded in raising better strawberries 
 than children, for let me tell you that his Republican children have given 
 us Democrats a mighty sight of trouble.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir; that is so. He generally succeeds with anything he 
 undertakes.' 
 
 ' How many of those berries does it take to make a quart ? ' 
 
 * About twenty to thirty ; I suppose an average of twenty-five 
 would cover it.' 
 
 1 Why ! You had better sell them for a cent apiece.' 
 ' Well, they sell at that as fast as lightning. They don't stay on 
 hand long.' 
 
84 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 Of course I knew whose berries they were as soon as I saw them. 
 It was only a whim of mine to interview the groceryman. 
 
 The next day a party of us were visiting your grounds, and you 
 may well remember the liberties taken by me at that time. I then had 
 with me a powerful glass, and I was determined to investigate matters 
 thoroughly. I examined the roots, leaves, stalks, and berries of your 
 strawberry vines. I dissected and investigated them in every imaginable 
 way, as also the pea vines, cauliflowers, cabbages, and in fact all vege- 
 tables and vegetation within your grounds, and, as I told you at that 
 time, I did not find a single exception wherein a plant was not perfectly 
 clean and healthy. 
 
 No fungi to be found anywhere. Root, stalk, leaf, twig, and fruit, 
 all in perfect health, and absolutely free from fungus or parasites. Straw- 
 berries larger than plums, and everything in like proportion. Even the 
 timothy and other grasses seemed brighter, fresher, and more luxuriant. 
 
 Of course, I inquired into the expense per acre of such a system, 
 which I cannot pretend to give from memory; I will leave that to you. 
 But allow me to say that if all lands were, in place of underdraining and 
 subsoiling, treated as you do yours ; deep trenches, broad and wide, filled 
 with stones and covered with soil as yours are ; fertilized with a compost 
 as you prepare it, having it fully assimilated before using I say, if all 
 this could be done, then, and not till then, can we do away with this crea- 
 tion, cultivation, and dissemination of poisonous fungi, which, as has 
 been shown, is working such sad disaster and death to the whole uni- 
 versal and vegetable world." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 That the Department of Agriculture among Cabinet positions is 
 to be found most important of any in the future of our government 
 may be set down as a fact. The enactment into law of what is known as 
 " The Hatch Experimental Station Bill," the author of which is the Hon. 
 W. H. Hatch, of Hannibal, Mo., dated an epoch with the people of the 
 United States, to ultimate in such an education of the industrial classes 
 as to place America in the front rank of progress, and make the entire 
 country one of universal prosperity and wealth. At this point I would 
 ask the Department of Agriculture to take means at once to lay before 
 the American public that portion of a report on irrigation in the United 
 States, made by Mr. Richard J. Hinton, under direction of Commissioner 
 Coleman, found on pages 150 to 154, that our people may realize the 
 fact, the saving and use of the waters for all they are worth is to become 
 the world's future. I especially ask that all agriculturists and horticultur- 
 ists may note the conclusions reached by Mr. Marsh, late Minister to 
 Italy, touching the duties and responsibilities of governments in taking 
 charge of the whole matter of irrigation. To this complexion must it 
 come at last. That this great revolution is at our very doors, let the fol- 
 lowing from The Field and Farm, of Denver, Col., bear evidence, that 
 the policies of government have already been substantially fixed as re- 
 gards this whole matter : 
 
 " IRRIGATING THE PLAINS. 
 
 Last year Congress appropriated $250,000 for the purpose of investigat- 
 ing the extent to which the ' and regions ' of the West can be redeemed 
 by irrigation. It is proposed to dam up the canons of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains so as to form immense reservoirs of water from the melting snows 
 and heavy rainfalls of the region, to be used for the irrigation of the arid 
 lands west of the looth meredian, embracing an area of 150,000 square 
 miles. The location of the reservoirs, and the selection of the courses 
 of irrigating canals are under direction of the originator of the gigantic 
 scheme, Major Powell, of the geological survey, and will ultimately cost 
 
86 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 between three and four million dollars, while the construction of the 
 works must entail an outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars but, in 
 return, it is estimated that the full realization of the plan will reclaim for 
 profitable agriculture an area equal to four-fifths of the present cultivated 
 land in the United States. The first appropriation was made chiefly to 
 obtain more data for determining whether the scheme was so feasible as 
 to justify further expenditure. Congress has now virtually committed the 
 country to the execution of the project by making another appropriation 
 of $250,000 for continuing the survey. The governors of all the Terri- 
 tories to be first and chiefly benefited by the project speak loudly in favor 
 of at least the present work, and urge local co-operation." 
 
 In view of the fact that great artificial reservoirs are a constant men- 
 ace, likely to give way at any time with disastrous results, we ask that the 
 merits of this system be given consideration by those in authority. 
 Under it the waters of the mountain streams can be turned into under- 
 ground storage, and carried from points along summits to slopes and 
 inclines, foothills, plains, and into valleys, until moisture shall everywhere 
 prevail, and the arid lands become a water preserve down to the bed 
 rock. That such a system would be automatic and at all times operative, 
 cannot fail to be discovered by the most casual thinker. Of the efficacy 
 of Mr. Cole's system and the profits realized, it is only necessary to com- 
 pare them with the system of intense culture applied by the market 
 gardeners in the country districts around Paris, as reported by Prince 
 Krapotkine, results electrifying the world. 
 
 He asserts that there is not a country in the world that begins to 
 contain the number of people that might easily be supported upon its 
 own soil without importation of food or agricultural supplies of any kind 
 from foreign countries ; that where there has been an assumed pressure 
 of population, as in England and Ireland, the causes have been, not that 
 the land was not abundantly able to procure for them all, and more than 
 all, that was needed for a full and satisfactory support of existence, but 
 because in these countries the land laws and the monopoly of land by 
 private ownership have been such that the people have not been able to 
 utilize its resources as they should, and, under other circumstances, 
 probably would. 
 
 As an illustration of the productive capacity of the earth under 
 proper treatment, he gives a number of instances borrowed from the ex- 
 perience of the market gardeners in the country districts around Paris, 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 87 
 
 where the soil, even in the hands of relatively ignorant men, has been 
 utilized so as to be enormously productive. He refers to one farm of 
 2.7 acres in extent, from which there are annually 4ak en 125 tons of 
 market vegetables of all kinds. The farmer in this case and he is but 
 a sample of his class has found out a part of the secrets of nature, and 
 by the building of walls to protect his lands from the cold winds, by 
 whitening these so as to secure all possible radiated heat, and by a con- 
 stant and judicious use of fertilizers, has his little farm constantly in a 
 productive condition from January i to December 31. He has, in effect, 
 by simple and inexpensive means, produced a result equivalent to what 
 would have been obtained if the farm had been located in the open air. 
 a number of degrees to the south of Paris. 
 
 He and other market gardeners around Paris make their soil, and 
 have each year quite a quantity to sell ; for, if this disposition was not 
 made, in consequence of the amount of fertilizer used, their farms would 
 gradually be lifted up above the level of the surrounding ground. Prince 
 Krapotkine says it does not in the least matter what the soil is from 
 which they originally start; for a French market gardener would in two 
 years' time raise an abundance of vegetable products from an asphalt 
 pavement as a foundation. Soil, either made up of loam or fertilizers, 
 is a chemical product, and not the least difficulty will be experienced, 
 when the laws of chemistry are better understood, in manufacturing all 
 of the material needed for plant life. 
 
 In his opinion the ordinary French market gardeners are but be- 
 ginning in the business, for they devote a great deal of unnecessary time 
 and labor to work which could be much more easily performed by me- 
 chanical processes. The way in which this could be brought about is 
 shown in the experience of one French market gardener, who has cov- 
 ered over a half-acre tract of ground with a glass roof, and has run steam 
 pipes, supplied by a small steam boiler, at intervals under the ground 
 sheltered by this covering. The result has been that he has been able 
 for ten months out of every year to cut each day from this little tract of 
 ground from 1,000 to 1,200 large bunches of asparagus, an amount of 
 product which, under ordinary conditions, would require not less than 
 sixty acres of land ; that is, by a skillful adaptation of means to ends, the 
 productive capacity of a given tract of land has been increased more 
 than a hundredfold. Even this result, great as it is, has been surpassed 
 by an English gardener, whose experiences are referred to in the last 
 
88 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 number of the Quarterly Review, who has entered into the cultivation 
 of mushrooms, and has been able, in consequence of the skill he has 
 shown in this work, to net an annual profit from a little farm of one 
 acre in extent of more than $5,000. That the market gardens around 
 Paris are profitable may be judged by the fact that the average rental 
 charged for these is $150 per acre. 
 
 Prince Krapotkine maintains that, even at the present time, with 
 their only partially instructive methods, the French gardeners could 
 easily raise enough, both in animals and vegetables, to supply all that 
 was needed for the sustenance and protection of life at the rate of 1,000 
 human beings to the square mile; or, in other words, under a method of 
 intense and properly directed culture, it will be easy for the State of 
 Massachusetts to sustain within her own borders a population of not less 
 than 9,000,000 human beings, and this, be it remembered, is but the be- 
 ginning, for no one yet knows the limit to be set upon the productive 
 capacity of the soil. 
 
 To create soils, infuse, and continue within them elements of fer- 
 tility, as is done and being done by these French market gardeners, 
 would call for an outlay in the complete regeneration of France alone of 
 greater amount than it would to cover the watersheds of the world under 
 Mr. Cole's system, accomplishing the same results, and, in addition 
 thereto, saving and giving for use to man and crop the waters. 
 
 Here we will give place to selections from a letter written by Mr. 
 Cole to Mr. Farrar, of the Labor Review, and by him published, as he, 
 with his ready pen, tells of results of the system which will follow its in- 
 troduction results not undetermined, but proven by Mr. Cole and others 
 who have adopted it. 
 
 \_From the Labor Review^ 
 
 "The following coming to our table from Father Cole, of the Home 
 on the Hillside, will need no extended introduction. If there is now liv- 
 ing anywhere a man appropriately denominated the Father of the Repub- 
 lican party, that man is Asahel Nicolas Cole, of Wellsville. For years, 
 this bold, brave, fearless, and independent Old Man of the Mountains, 
 as he is denominated, has made no concealment of the fact that he is a 
 labor and land reformer, and in sympathy with every endeavor of the in- 
 dustrial classes to make their way up in the world. This man has been 
 from the first little understood, scarcely understood at all, in fact ; at 
 times declared by the Democrats a Democrat and free trader ; again by 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 89 
 
 labor journals a labor reform man, and we believe also that the Prohi- 
 bitionists have claimed that he belonged to them. We have known in- 
 timately the man since so widely spoken of on account of his New Agri- 
 culture, sometimes denominated Aquaculture, or Sub-Irrigation, for many 
 years. But we have said enough. Hear Father Cole : 
 
 ' WELLSVILLE, N. Y., July 21. I made to you a promise somewhat in 
 pleasantry, and, having done so, making it a rule never to make good 
 promises and not keep them, and having made bad ones not to carry them 
 out, I proceed to write. I did not say what I declared could be done for 
 thirty dollars an acre, but, as I understand your soils, I conclude those on 
 the surface are naturally rich in mould, and have clay subsoils, and will 
 presume such is the case. Again, I conclude that stones are abundant 
 in your section, a matter of great moment. In its absence, resort to tile 
 is a necessity. Even in countries where recourse must be had to quarries, 
 the expense of fitting lands will not be greatly increased. I will say, there- 
 fore, right along, that in lands where round and flat stones prevail, these 
 are invaluable, since, once fitted, with the reservoirs and overflows such as 
 I am about to describe, there will be little work for you and your children 
 and children's children for thousands of years, except to sow your grain, 
 put in your potatoes and corn, harvest your crops of grain, grasses, fruit, 
 etc., and be happy. You will never have any subsoiling to do, and, as 
 for plowing, dragging, and working your land generally, inclusive of ma- 
 nuring, the rains and melting snows will do fully nine-tenths of it, and the 
 automatic inmovement of the waters will convince you within three years 
 from the time of fitting your first acre that there was a little more of 
 philosophy in the heads and hands of your New England ancestors, with 
 their stone in one end of the bag and the grist in the other, than in those 
 of their sons still holding on in the ways of farming such as have pre- 
 vailed the world over outside of the semi-barborous countries where folks 
 like the Japs, the Heathen Chinee, and some others have crudely done 
 for thousands of years what I am doing on my hillside.' 
 
 (Here follows description of manner of construction not necessary 
 to repeat.) 
 
 ' You will now, I feel sure, understand me when I say the cost of agri- 
 cultural or ordinary farm lands is placed at $30 per acre, and most per- 
 fectly fitted garden lands at $300 per acre. My most perfect lands, a 
 hopeless clay and clod, filled with stone (more stone than soil when I be- 
 gan), are a perfect tilth or sponge, made so by the fork to begin with, and 
 
90 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 rendered absolutely perfect by movement of the water through them for 
 live years, animalcule left dead in track of the waters, and are this hour 
 the most productive soils on the face of the earth. On these I am grow- 
 ing cauliflower from the embryo of the size of a walnut to thirty inches 
 in circumference in from seven to ten days, rapidity of growth depending 
 on atmospheric conditions the more hot and dry the weather the more 
 rapid will the roots make for the water beneath. It is this that gives me 
 a cauliflower, full grown, in a fourth of the time from appearance of em- 
 bryo under ordinary conditions of growth. 
 
 ASTONISHING RESULTS. 
 
 To show what Mother Earth is capable of doing at her best, has 
 been my endeavor. Thousands of people have been here to see my work. 
 When asked what it has cost my answer has been : " My very best acre 
 may have cost four or five hundred dollars." In this I have included not 
 merely the cost of fitting, but of planting to fruit and all else connected 
 with the work for the first three years, inclusive of caring for and harvest- 
 ing of crops. My most perfectly fitted lands have been tests simply, and 
 on these I have grown early rose potatoes at the rate of 1,200 bushels 
 per acre ; timothy and clover, three and four crops annually on the same 
 test meadow, at the rate of three and a half tons of cured hay, aggregat- 
 ing from twelve to fourteen tons to the acre. I grow, year in and year 
 out, at the best, strawberries at the rate of from four to five hundred 
 bushels to the acre, and these from the size of ordinary ones to that of 
 peaches, and thence on up in some instances to the size of the average 
 greening apple. I have now growing on my place Cuthbert raspberries 
 at rate of not less than six hundred bushels to the acre. My raspberries 
 and blackberries are growing upon lands costing not to exceed fifty dol- 
 lars an acre for fitting. I use no phosphates, nor would I take as a gift 
 all that might be offered me. I use well-rotted barn manure, but where 
 manures are deposited in open trenches, that these may be liquidated by 
 the rains, there is no need of rotting. The animalculae left dead in soils 
 is my chief reliance for fertilizing. The value of waters falling upon 
 lands during the year in this regard is far greater than all possible manur- 
 ing. In passing the waters through the clay and clod from trench to 
 trench, as I am doing, the effect is, to aerate, infiltrate, and render them 
 warm, vital, soft, porous, and productive to the depth of trenching. And 
 on lands where only three, or four, or five inches of surface of product- 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 91 
 
 ive soil naturally exists, the roots of plants will, within three years after 
 lands are trenched, penetrate to depth of the trenches. Best of all, the 
 soluble elements of the clay and clod are released, and aluminum, potas- 
 sium, and all else making up best of " soup, porridge, or broth," pabulum 
 perfectly prepared for absolute perfection of plant growth follows. 
 
 THE POOREST SOIL WILL Do. 
 
 More gradual will be found the fertilizing of arid and sandy lands, 
 but none the less sure. New England, were her stone buried in her soils 
 as I am doing, would, I am confident, within a decade be producing 
 more of value than now grown on all lands under cultivation in the- 
 American Union. To drop the waters of rains and melting ices and 
 snows into trenches, enabling them to descend to the bed rock, would fill 
 subsoils with water, and, diffusing moisture in all directions, deserts 
 would disappear, and in their waste places would grow grasses and grains, 
 fruits and flowers, grand trees, deep rooting and sending up great 
 trunks with spreading branches ; and along mountain sides and in valleys, 
 across arid plains of alkaline deposits, where the prickly pear, the sage 
 brush, and grease wood now prevail would appear the higher forms of 
 plant life, and springs everywhere cropping out, brooks would be grown, 
 rivers appear in valleys where none now are found, and lakes of crystal 
 water, alive with brook trout and other of the best varieties of fish 
 would be found in dells among the mountains, and from these the waters 
 can be dropped from mains to the valleys, and by use of the water mo- 
 tor and the turbine wheel with cable attachments the world can be set 
 in automatic play of whiz and whirl, moving the most ponderous of 
 of machinery, and setting the pick, and spade, and shovel at work, 
 guided by the hand of man, the forces of nature made to do the work 
 now done by hand, from that upon the Panama Canal, down to that of the 
 housewife with her churn, the farmer with his threshing machine, the 
 manufacturer with his mighty shaft in perpetual motion, and the lady 
 with her sewing machine, driven by a motor hung upon the wall as an 
 ornament, magically moving her knitting needles in automatic and end- 
 less movements. 
 
 ITS SANITARY ADVANTAGES. 
 
 To conform soils as I have done and am doing would produce not 
 only all of these results, but would drain all swamps, dry up all fetid 
 pools and morasses, purify all waters, render healthful and vivifying the 
 
c>2 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 air, make an end of stagnation, living germs, microbes, malarial infec- 
 tions of air and water, and, making an end correspondingly of prema- 
 ture decay and untimely death so would the harvest be. To calculate 
 the effect upon the climates of different countries is a something in the 
 contemplation of which the mind of man can scarcely embrace in its 
 utmost stretch of endeavor. To diffuse moisture through all of the earth's 
 watersheds from pole to pole, as I have demonstrated, is as easy as to 
 sink trenches on your own farm, following directions herein given, and 
 would have the effect to everywhere maintain the dew point in soils, 
 winter and summer alike, simoons, siroccos, cyclones and blizzards 
 would disappear, and the winter of earth's discontent turn to glorious 
 summer.' " 
 
 Reports from others who are using the system are as strongly in its 
 favor as those from Mr. Root and from Florida. We have not the space 
 in which to publish some we would like to give our readers, containing 
 as they do information of value. As the question has been frequently 
 asked of effect on orchards, we will give room to a letter, or an extract from 
 a letter from Mr. Cole, and a report made by a gentleman who has applied 
 it to his orchard. Mr. Cole says : " Before the war I visited the farm of 
 Mr. Christopher Grastorf, an intelligent German farmer of this town. On 
 it was found a remarkably thrifty and growing young orchard of four acres. 
 Immediately above the orchard is a rocky cliff, at the base of which 
 issued a large number of living springs. After perfecting my system, I 
 suggested to my friend the advisability of sinking a trench below the cliff, 
 and throwing the water in even diffusion along the water-table, insuring 
 sub-irrigation the year round. No disciple could have been of readier 
 agreement, and he forthwith followed the suggestion. Results were 
 simply incredible; grass, patatoes, garden vegetables, etc., were grown 
 from year to year between the trees, and such crops have never been 
 seen within my knowledge, outside of my ' Home on the Hillside.' 
 This, the 6th day of June, 1889, Mr. Grastorf brings to my home 
 specimens of the northern spy apple in as perfect condition as were any 
 fruit from any orchard of last fall. These he says are but samples of 
 the yield of this orchard, and that he is not able to thus preserve apples 
 grown without sub-irrigation." 
 
 For himself, Mr. Grastorf says : " I became convinced that one 
 acre of sub-irrigated land is of intrinsically greater value than ten or 
 twenty under old methods of culture, and decided to remove my barns, 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 
 
 93 
 
 at an expense of one hundred dollars, that the liquids from the barnyard 
 might enter the trenches. This I did with best and astonishing results. 
 The net profits from my four acres being much more than from entire 
 fifty acres outside, and had I the means I would sub-irrigate my whole 
 farm." 
 
 Office of Opera House, ~) 
 
 S. F. Hanks, Agent, 
 WELLSVILLE, N. Y., July ist, 1889.) 
 A. P. COLE, 
 
 Dear Sir: Your father requested me to send you a statement of. 
 my trenching for water in my garden lot. You know it is across the 
 street from yours, not directly opposite, but northerly therefrom. On the 
 edge of the upper slope I dug a trench five feet deep, running the 
 length of the lot on Highland street. It was made to descend from each 
 end towards the center; at the center I laid a pipe, /. e., at right angles 
 leading down the hillside to my lane. This pipe was also buried below 
 the frost line. I put a goose-neck pipe at its terminus at the lane, and 
 have an artificial spring, as a result, of the purest water. I prepared the 
 trench by filling the bottom eight inches with gravel and sand for the 
 purpose of filtering and purifying the water. 
 
 I then filled the trench with stone picked from the garden to within 
 eighteen inches of the surface, covered these small stones with large flat 
 ones, and buried the entire length with garden soil. I cultivate over the 
 entire system with astonishing results. This season has been very rainy, 
 and the surplus waterfall on my lot has been conducted off by the 
 underground pipe, leaving the surface ground under tillage light, spongy, 
 and in a proper condition to promote rapid growth of vegetation. There 
 is a large stream of surplus water running down State street on both 
 sides, one from your father's, which is utilized by some German families 
 
 living by the side of its course. Yours truly, 
 
 S. F. HANKS." 
 
 Mr. Richard Jacobs, of Independence, Allegany County, an old 
 veteran of the late war, writes that he has secured the blessing of a 
 flowing fountain of pure and sweet water for family use, and that at a 
 point where before putting in the system there was no water supply. 
 
 In a letter of recent date, Dr. W. M. DeHart, of Stark, Fla., writes : 
 tl We are suffering from the effects of a seven weeks' drouth. Vegetation 
 
94 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 is burned up. On my trenched land Irish and sweet potatoes are grow- 
 ing strong, green, and of fine color." Dr. DeHart is extending his work. 
 
 Space will permit of no more reports. 
 
 The year 1889 will pass into history as the year of floods, carrying- 
 in their path death to thousands, and destruction to property and crops 
 too large to enumerate. 
 
 The "Home on the Hillside" was in the path of the storm, and 
 stands to-day unmarked and without damage by the falling, rushing 
 waters, while on all sides of it lands were gullied and washed, crops 
 destroyed, and other damage wrought. Though the fall of water was 
 such as was never before known in Western New York, the trenches on 
 Mr. Cole's land took up the waters, holding them in storage. Had the 
 watersheds of the floaded districts been under Mr. Cole's system, the 
 rainfall would have been taken up and held as it is by forest districts, 
 the stored waters feeding crop, spring, well, brook, and river in long and 
 steady flow. Floods can be, should be, rendered things of the past, 
 while our springs and streams are restored to their original purity and 
 volume. By these floods millions of dollars have been lost ; other mil- 
 lions must be spent to repair damages. 
 
 A fraction of these sums spent by government or individuals would 
 have provided safe storage for all these rainfalls, making them agents of 
 good, and preventing them from becoming a demon of destruction. With 
 results of these storms still in full view, our readers will please peruse the 
 following eloquent appeal made to the tile makers of Ohio in convention 
 assembled at Columbus, three years ago. 
 
 The speaker was Mr. L. W. Matthewson, civil engineer, of -Cincin- 
 nati, as reported for and published in The Drainage and Farm Journal 
 of Indianapolis, Indiana. Let every reader peruse and ponder, and 
 make up his or her mind whether aquaculture or the new agriculture is 
 a chimera, or, on the contrary, the greatest and most triumphant exhibit 
 of physical fact brought out since time began: 
 
 " The profits of farming by established methods are small, hence the 
 reluctance of farmers to take risks. They are impelled to close economy, 
 and it becomes a habit verging upon parsimony too often. But here is 
 at least a way of securing enormous gains, and the plan is therefore 
 worthy of consideration. What Mr. Cole has done may be- repeated a 
 thousand times it will be, too when farmers have a clear view of its 
 attendant advantages. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 95 
 
 How is this to be introduced to the farming world? No matter 
 how enthusiastic and earnest the author may be in pushing it, you, who 
 know how much hard work it requires to induce the farmer to take hold 
 of tile drainage costing $10 or $20 per acre, can readily appreciate 
 that they are not going to rush precipitously into a scheme requiring the 
 expenditure of $100 to $300 per acre. But many farms are destitute of 
 springs or permanent running waters. To such, an everflowing spring 
 would be of great value, both for household use and for general farm 
 purposes. One acre can be prepared at much less cost than cisterns 
 can be dug, or wells bored, and windmills erected, aud this will secure a. 
 constant flow of perfectly pure, living water. Now if in addition to this^ 
 the farmer finds this acre more easily tilled, and yielding four-fold crops 
 of better quality, then will he not hesitate to invest the profit of this 
 acre upon other acres, until his farm is honeycombed with reservoirs and 
 overflow trenches. The farmer or the gardener is then the absolute 
 master of the situation. He cares not for floods or drouths. He knows 
 that when he plants he shall reap an abundant harvest. 
 
 Were this system once generally adopted along the banks of the 
 Alleghany, Monongahela, and the Ohio rivers, for a distance of only ten 
 miles on each side, covering an area of 30,000 square miles, then would 
 our terrible floods be reduced to insignificance, and the summer stage 
 brought up so that the * Broad horns ' could float from Pittsburgh to 
 Cairo in July as in March. Then would we snap our fingers at Uncle 
 Sam, bid him take out his dams and dikes, keep hands off, and give our 
 beautiful Ohio free swing from the Alleghany to the Mississippi. To 
 our short-sighted vision such conception seems almost like the vaporings 
 of a madman. But let us roll back the wheel of time for only ten years 
 to 1876. We see tile drainage in its infancy struggling feebly for a foot- 
 hold. Look upon it to-day as with giant strides it steps across the 
 States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan, and reaches out 
 with mighty arms to take in all of Uncle Sam's dominions, and the rest 
 of the civilized world. To-day I have the pleasure of looking into the 
 faces of scores of men, each one of whom could tell the wonderful story 
 of the marvelous march of tile drainage, which if told in '76 would have 
 marked him as a visionary and a dreamer." 
 
 The New York State Experimental Station at Geneva was among the 
 first institutions of its kind set in operation. This station, working under a 
 Board of Control, with Dr. Lewis E. Sturtevant as Director. In its an- 
 
96 DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 
 
 nual report ot 1888, on the first fifteen pages, is clearly set forth the fun- 
 damentals of agriculture and horticulture in fullest of perfection. Dr. 
 Sturtevarit, one of the most advanced thinkers and workers of the coun- 
 try, was the first to step to the front and boldly make declaration under 
 head of " water-table " as follows : " As evaporation during the growing 
 season is in excess of the rainfall, it becomes evident that farming suc- 
 cess is only possible from the existence of a stored water supply within 
 the soil from the surplus of the ^season, when evaporation is somewhat 
 checked, or from the waters accumulated from the surface or saturated 
 flow." The requirements of the principles set forth are all met by this 
 system. 
 
 Mr. Cole's system has received the compliment of extended notice 
 and endorsement at the hands of the leading papers of the day and coun- 
 try. We, in behalf of Mr. Cole, to these gentlemen extend thanks. 
 
 Since boyhood Mr. Cole has made study, observation, and experi- 
 ments with a view to (by some method as near nature's as possible) save 
 the waters of rain and snow, and hold them in storage until such time as 
 they would be required by the crops of the growing season, to compel 
 them to deposit their valuable elements of fertilization in the soil, and to 
 prevent their loss in rush of floods over the earth's surface, carrying in 
 their flow destruction to soil, crops, and other property, also prevent their 
 stagnation, a condition in which they work injury to man, beast, and crop,, 
 breeding for the first two disease, and destruction to the last by sure and 
 direct means. He began making earnest aud extended experiments in 
 this line while residing in Basswood Cottage on the White Creek, Alle- 
 gany County, N. Y., afterward continuing them on a plot of two city lots 
 in the City of Brooklyn. Upon his return to his home in Wellsville, N. 
 Y., he took up the work in earnest, and devoted time, labor, and money 
 without stint until he had perfected his present method, and secured the 
 desired results. Having done so, he, acting under the advice of friends 
 who knew a little of the outlay he had been to, as well as the amount or 
 work he had done, applied for a patent to cover the system. Never were 
 the merits of a thing for which patent was asked more thoroughly looked 
 into than were those of this. 
 
 On the 22d of July, 1884, the patent was allowed, and the papers is- 
 sued. Underground storage and distribution of water, as well as all ma- 
 terials which can be used in construction are covered by it. Mr. Cole at 
 once said a very small remuneration for his work, study and outlay was. 
 
A NEW SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 97 
 
 all he desired, and the price for right of use should be placed at a figure 
 so low it would not be a burden or tax on the poorest landowner. 
 
 The following price has been fixed upon for right of use by individu- 
 als, and will not be varied from. 
 
 For one acre or less $5 oo 
 
 For all over one acre i oo per acre. 
 
 This is but a single payment, to be made on application for deed, 
 and not an annual payment as some have seemed to think. 
 
 Hot water rights not included in this price. 
 
 Special prices given for them on application. Mr. Cole, on his 
 model plot grows all the most desirable varieties of strawberries, rasp- 
 berries, and blackberries, currants, vines, bushes, and trees, all of which 
 are absolutely free from disease. (See report of Dr. Early.) They are 
 very strong, bear transportation to long distances, and take hold in new 
 growth as soon as reset. 
 
 Special directions sent with each order sent out by us for all year 
 round care, according to locality where sent. Orders carefully filled and 
 packed. Prices for stock given on application. These will at all times 
 be as low as any good stock in the market, and when the advantage of 
 healthy growth given them by this system is considered, they will be 
 cheaper. 
 
 For rights or any desired information, address 
 
 A. P. COLE, Agent, 
 Wellsville, Allegany County, 
 
 New York. 
 
HOME ON THE HILLSIDE, 
 WELLSVILLE, N. Y., June 29th, 1889. 
 
 I endorse all found in this book, my son having done the work to 
 my entire satisfaction and this is all, in my enfeebled state of health, I 
 can contribute to its pages. As regards to the extent, value, and im- 
 portance of my discoveries, I have left their vaunting to a cloud of 
 witnesses all along uncounted, and now unanimous in their verdict of ap- 
 proval, and I confess that in view of the fact my discoveries are, figura- 
 tively speaking at least, that mysterious three in one and one in three 
 of God in nature symbolized by the predictions of the earliest sages, 
 seeking through ages to find it out. It appears at last in the form of 
 harvests of wealth and worth to the world, transcending in value all 
 others hitherto combined. I see no reason why I should not have 
 at least the credit, whether living- or dying, due from their coming. To 
 say the least, it would seem settled that the water supply of the greatest 
 city of the world, instead of being furnished from an artificial lake of 
 unprecedented proportions, standing as a constant manace to the lives 
 and property of millions of people, should no longer receive serious con- 
 sideration, but that the counties of Westchester, Putnam, Duchess, Col- 
 umbia, and others east of the Hudson, reaching out to the Adirondacks, 
 should be dotted with living springs, linked by streams with crystal lakes, 
 with water at temperature to grow brook trout, and in the meantime, in 
 securing such water supply, the lands trenched will become worth on the 
 average from fifty to one hundred dollars an acre at least, in place of one 
 dollar in value of the past. 
 
 A. N. COLE, 
 
Died. At about midnight, July I4th, at his 
 residence, " The Home on the Hillside," at 
 Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y., the Hon. A. 
 N. Cole, in the 6yth year of his age. 
 
101 
 
 The death of Mr. Cole took place after a long illness, during which 
 he was a great sufferer. While unable to sit up or hold his pen he dic- 
 tated letters to many who will be our readers, also to the press ; always 
 anxious to lead others to see what he has known, the advantages of 
 saving and storing one of God's best gifts to man the waters. Since 
 his death the press of the country of all classes, from ocean to ocean 
 and from the lakes to the gulf, have united in paying compliment to his 
 manhood and works. Two of these we will here lay before you. The 
 following appeared in the Sun of July i6th, and is from the pen of 
 Charles A. Dana, the ablest and most distinguished editor in the United 
 States. The editor of the Sun and Mr. Cole were intimate friends : 
 
 We learn with deep regret that Asahel N. Cole, the inventor of the 
 system of subterraneous irrigation, died at his home in Wellsville, N. Y., 
 on Sunday evening. He was in the sixty-seventh year of his age. 
 
 A complete and practical manual of his system was finished by Mr. 
 Cole only a few weeks ago, and we understand that it is now in the 
 hands of the printers and will soon be published. If this system should 
 realize even a small part of the benefits he confidently expecte from it, 
 his name will remain immortal as one of the great benefactors of man- 
 kind. 
 
 Mr. Cole was a man of a warm, earnest, and sanguine nature, 
 faithful to his friends, faithful to his convictions of duty, and proud of 
 being an American. Had he lived to see his system widely developed 
 and successfully applied, his faith in it would not have been increased ; 
 and we trust that his death may not prevent an adequate test of its value. 
 His death leaves the world poorer by all his genius, energy, enthusiasm, 
 and faith." 
 
 The following is from The Husbandman of July 24th, 1889 : 
 " A little more than a week ago Hon. A. N. Cole died at his * Home 
 on the Hillside,' near Wellsville, Allegany County, N. Y. For many years 
 
102 
 
 he had been an important factor in public affairs. To him history will 
 give credit as a leading organizer of the Republican party, that for twenty- 
 four years held the Presidency of the Republic, and through a great 
 part of that time controlled every department of the general govern- 
 ment. Mr. Cole grew to full manhood under conditions that imposed 
 many hardships. Unaided he procured an education that, with remark- 
 able powers of mind, aided to make him a leader of men ; and, though 
 the party to which he held paternal relations never rewarded him with 
 important positions, there were times when his influence in public affairs 
 was potent, even though not publicly recognized. Perhaps no other man 
 in the period of his greatest activity had wider, acquaintance with men 
 who, in the critical period of internal strife and the years following, 
 managed the destinies of the country. His keen perception and alert 
 mind gave him fitness to direct, as he did on many occasions, the acts 
 of men to whom power was delegated by the suffrages of their fellows. 
 For politics he had natural fondness, intensified by indulgence and 
 many political triumphs, from which, as a rule, others gathered the 
 fruits. But in late years that fondness gave way to a consuming ambi- 
 tion, in fact the outgrowth of a long life, devoted, in large part, to the 
 study of economic conditions attending the development of American 
 agriculture. He believed that farmers might augment profits greatly if 
 they would but observe more closely the operation of natural laws, and 
 avail of beneficent influences subject to their command. In full conso- 
 nance with this idea, he began a few years ago experiments on the com- 
 pact and forbidding soil of the little farm that, with a comfortable house, 
 constituted his ' Home on the Hillside.' His purpose was to deepen 
 and disintegrate land that in its natural state was little better than clods 
 brought by long inaction to the greatest solidity, and he reasoned that if 
 that unproductive land could be so improved, without great cost, to make 
 it produce crops fully equal in quality and extent to those gathered from 
 the rich alluvial plain in view, the fact would be of immense value to 
 thousands of farmers whose lands were of a similar character. His 
 
io 3 
 
 scheme comprises the most effective system of irrigation ever devised 
 storing the rainfall in deep trenches extending laterally along the hill 
 slopes. From these he expected that water sunk through the loosened 
 and comminuted earth would be held within the compact walls of his 
 trenches, to be released only by slow percolation, whereby roots of plants 
 might at all seasons find abundant moisture. His success was marvelous ; 
 that poor land, renovated by what came to be called the ' New Agricul- 
 ture,' produced crops far superior in quality and extent to any gathered 
 from the choicest lands of the valley. In small fruits the improvement 
 was so great that plain, truthful statements were often met by incredulity. 
 The evidence was in open view. It was credited by men of science, but 
 those who could profit most by full acceptance refused to see the great 
 improvement, hence the ' New Agriculture,' certified by fruits annually 
 produced with unfailing certainty, was spurned, and the story discredited 
 as the vagary of an old man self- deceived. No doubt this incredulity 
 served to deprive Mr. Cole's latter years of much happiness, if not to em- 
 bitter feelings naturally buoyant, and possibly to hasten his departure, 
 when, with his abstemious habits and natural vigor, he had reason to 
 look hopefully far beyond the allotted three score and ten years that he 
 had but just passed. It was his high ambition to leave to his fellow-men a 
 legacy of good to be enjoyed for all time. He did not live to see that 
 full appreciation for which he had intense longing, but who shall say that 
 his triumph will not yet be that great benefaction for which he seemed 
 ready to give his life ? " 
 
Return to desk from which bor d. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped be. 
 
 LD21 
 
 -100.9,'47(A5702sl6)476 
 
YC 68082 
 
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 TC 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY