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GIFT OF 
 
Tile Drainage 
 
 An explanation of how and why 
 tile will benefit a large per- 
 centage of our lands 
 and increase our 
 INCOMES 
 
 Together with instructions for the 
 proper installation of an 
 efficient tile drain- 
 age system. 
 
 BY JAMES A. KING 
 
 Practical Farmer, Specialist on Tile Drainage 
 for farms, formerly Professor in Extension 
 Department, Iowa State College, assistant 
 editor, "Farm Engineering" and managing 
 editor "The Farming Business." 
 
 Copyright 1918, by James A. Kirg 
 
L ' 
 
 V V- 
 
A Statement by 
 
 the Publishers 
 
 For several years we have realized the need for placing in 
 the hands of land-owners a "Plain English" book on the subject 
 of drainage a book from which the technicalities of the usual 
 text book would be eliminated. 
 
 We discovered Prof. Jas. A. King on the point of publishing 
 the manuscript of this book. The first reading of the text re- 
 vealed the fact that Prof. King's ideas and principles agreed with 
 those we had held for years. We purchased the copyright rights 
 to the manuscript and have published it in order to do our part in 
 making known the great material benefits which the average 
 farmer or land-owner may expect from properly tiling his farm. 
 
 Prof. King was born and raised on an Iowa farm. He spent 
 two years in the Extension Department of the Iowa State 
 College, at Ames. For four years he managed large farms in the 
 wet areas of Iowa. For the past ten years he has been identified 
 with drainage work and the Iowa State Drainage Association. 
 He has been assistant editor of "Farm Engineering," and manag- 
 ing editor of the "Farming Business." At present he is manag- 
 ing his own farm in Mitchell County, Iowa, and writing for the 
 leading farm papers of Iowa and Minnesota. 
 
 With such a wealth of practical experience in drainage and 
 an unusual facility for telling others what he has personally ex- 
 perienced, no one is better qualified to state the real facts regard- 
 ing drainage and to give reliable advice upon this important sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Prof. King's ideas upon the proper methods of drainage, its 
 benefits and what is the proper tile, match up so perfectly with 
 our own that we have taken the liberty of inserting a chapter at 
 the end of this book to bring to your attention the merits of our 
 product. 
 
 Mason City Brick & Tile Co. 
 
 By B. C. Keeler 
 
 Mason City, Iowa 
 Sept. 16, 1918 
 
 397212 
 
Author's Introduction 
 
 Drainage is of two kinds. Sanitary drainage, or sewage disposal, 
 is the drainage of surplus water and liquid wastes from cities and 
 towns for sanitary reasons. Land drainage is the removal of surplus 
 surface or soil water from land to make it available for farm uses. 
 
 Sanitary drainage or sewage disposal is as old as is the habit of 
 human beings to live in settled communities or towns. The earliest 
 known method of sanitary drainage was by means of open surface 
 ditches. This method is still used in such backward portions of the 
 world as is India and China, where house sewage may be seen being 
 conducted thru the streets in open surface ditches. 
 
 The use of covered ditches, instead of open ditches, is in itself a 
 very ancient practice. The first covered sewage ditches of any perma- 
 nance were made by the use of flat stones to form a covered channel 
 in the bottom of the ditch, then filling the rest of the ditch with dirt. 
 The use of hard burned clay pipe, made in short lengths much as our 
 sewer pipe and drain tile of today, is as old as the ancient art of 
 pottery. Sewer pipe made of hard burned clay have been unearthed 
 in the island of Crete ; still 
 whole and serviceable after 
 being in the ground for near- 
 ly seven thousand years, ever 
 since the year 5,000 B. C. 
 
 One seems to be just- 
 ified in moralizing with the 
 philosopher of old, "There is 
 nothing new under the sun." 
 For Cato, an ancient Roman 
 author, in the year 200 B. C. 
 discussed quite extensively 
 the subject of farm drainage 
 as practiced by the Roman 
 farmers of his time. And 
 centuries before that, the ex- 
 act time of its beginning is 
 unknown, the farmers of 
 Egypt and of Babylonia 
 drained their wet lands in 
 order to make them yield 
 
 r-i-r\r\e r\f 1ot-rroi- n 11 i tif if AT- o n A #- 3r <* Burned Clay Sewer Pipe laid in Island of Crete 
 
 crops ol larger quantity and 5000 B.C. and stm in perfect condition. 
 
 better quality. Courtesy Clay Products Association 
 
So far as known, the first farm drainage was ac- 
 complished by means of open ditches. But even 
 before the time of Christ, Roman farmers, and farm- 
 ers of other countries bordering on the Mediterra- 
 nean Sea, were using covered drainage ditches. 
 These were made by digging the necessary ditches 
 Pal i et thru the wet areas of a farm, placing brush, sticks 
 
 End -view of Horse or stones in the bottom and then covering them with 
 shoe Tile, the first drain the soil. Thus it is seen that mere surface drainage 
 uie made. o f overflowed lands was soon followed by subsur- 
 
 face drainage which was designed to remove the surplus water from 
 the soil itself. 
 
 These ancient farmers soon found that these subsurface ditches, 
 which were filled with sticks, twigs or stones and covered over with 
 dirt so as not to interfere with working the fields, filled or clogged up 
 so they did not work so well. This led to building a channel in the 
 bottom of the ditch with flat stones of more or less regularity in size 
 and shape, which did not clog up so readily because there was a con- 
 tinuous open channel thru which the water could flow unimpeded. 
 The chief fault to be found with this type of ditch was that too large 
 openings existed between the stones because of unavoidable irregular- 
 ities in their size and shape. So that these also would fill up in time, 
 tho not so quickly by years as did those more ancient types of 
 covered ditches. 
 
 Even the use of clay tile for land drainage is not a new thing, not 
 by several hundred years. The farmers of France are given the credit 
 of being the first to use clay tile for the construction of farm drainage 
 ditches. They used a modified form of the medieval clay roofing tile 
 for this purpose. A cross section or end view of one of these tile 
 resembled a horse shoe, and they are known as ''horse shoe tile" 
 because of this resemblance. A flat piece of burned clay the length 
 of a tile, called a "pallet," was laid in the bottom of the ditch and a tile 
 was then laid on top of it with its open side down. Thus the pallet 
 closed the open side of the horse shoe shaped tile and so made a closed 
 tube for the water to flow thru. The exact date when these clay tile 
 were first used for land drainage in France is not known, but is 
 supposed to have been not later than the fourteenth or the fifteeenth 
 century. 
 
 The use of clay tile for farm drainage became a lost art in France, 
 forgotten and unknown to her farmers for many generations. In the 
 seventeenth or the eighteenth century it was again developed in 
 England. The same horse shoe shaped tile, modified from the shape 
 of the clay roofing tile, was also the first form used in England. These 
 tile were first made by hand, and consequently were very costly. 
 The first machine for making drain tile was developed in England in 
 1841. This greatly reduced the cost of drain tile, and correspondingly 
 increased their use. 
 
 John Johnston, of near Geneva, New York, was the first man to 
 tile land in America. At great expense he imported hand made, horse 
 shoe shaped, burned clay tile from his native Scotland in 1835. His 
 neighbors came from many miles around to view this "something new 
 
under the sun" and to tell him that they would poison and ruin his 
 land. But when the wheat crops he reaped from his cold clay soil 
 increased from ten or fifteen bushels an acre to forty and even fifty 
 bushels an acre some of them were convinced that maybe he was not a 
 fool after all. Some very few even following his example. The result 
 was that in 1848 one of those English machines for making tile was 
 imported into this country. By 1851 Johnston had sixteen miles of 
 tile ditches on his farm. These tile which were laid seventy to eighty 
 years ago are still working successfully and the old Johnston home- 
 stead is one of the finest farms in that part of New York, one of the 
 historic places of that state. 
 
 So you see that farm drainage, and even clay tile drainage, is not 
 something new and untried. Land drainage is as old as the written 
 history of the world. The use of clay tile for sanitary drainage or 
 sewage disposal is also as old as is the written history of the world. 
 And the use of clay tile for farm drainage is several centuries old. 
 Until very recent years tile drainage has been confined to "wet" lands. 
 Its purpose has been only to remove surplus water from land too wet 
 for the production of tilled crops. But in recent years it has been 
 realized that tile will very materially benefit soil which is not 
 ordinarily considered to be "wet." More progressive farmers are now 
 tiling high ground which the ordinary man does not consider needs 
 tiling, and they are finding that the investment so made is returning 
 big dividends. Soils which are "tight," but not "wet ;" soils which are 
 "cold," but not "wet" respond very markedly to tile drainage. They 
 loosen up and become mellow to the depth of the tile ditches, thus 
 permitting deeper penetration by the plant roots and a more free 
 circulation of air thru the soil ; they become warm and "quick ;" all 
 of these increase greatly the rapidity of crop growth and the quantity 
 and quality of yields. 
 
 There can be no mystery, no sorcery or witchery, about anything 
 which has been practiced so long as has farm drainage. Of course, all 
 that can be known about it is not yet known. But all that is needed 
 to be known about it to convince any reasonable man that it is a 
 good business investment to tile his land is already known. The 
 effect on his crops, and on his net income, is well known, and is 
 proven by centuries of actual practice. Surely, no sane man needs any 
 more argument than that to convince him. 
 
 This little book has been written for the purpose of presenting 
 to the farmers of this country in a very brief and simple way the 
 argument why they cannot afford not to tile their farms. Much of 
 it has been written to explain in that same simple manner the processes 
 by which tile drainage increases the quantity and the quality of the 
 crops which are grown on the land. Still more of it has been written 
 so that my brother farmers may know the fundamental principles in- 
 volved in planning and in constructing a good and 'efficient system 
 of tile ditches to meet the conditions existing on their farms. 
 
 It is written for farmers who own land which is not paying its 
 owners as large profits as it should pay them, because it is not pro- 
 ducing crops of as large yields or as high quality as it is able to, or 
 should, produce. It is written by a farmer who has worked wet, un- 
 
tiled land ; who has tiled it and then worked it after the tile have done 
 their duty. It is written by a farmer who has made an extensive 
 study of the theory, and an extensive observation of the practice and 
 the results, of land drainage. It is not written to make money for 
 the author, for only those who write interesting fiction make money 
 out of books. It is written to make more money for those who 
 read it and follow the advice given in it. It is written to do the 
 author's best to serve his nation in this crisis by helping to increase 
 our food supply, when he is unable to serve by wearing the khaki as 
 he once wore it. 
 
 The author realizes that the subject of "What Tile To Use" is 
 one which has been avoided religiously by other authors writing on 
 the subject of tile drainage. But my own experience taught me the 
 importance of the subject of what tile to use, and the difficulty I had 
 in answering the question for myself showed me how difficult it is 
 for any one to get reliable information on it. The quality of the tile 
 buried in the ground will make or ruin a drainage system, it will make 
 or break the man who makes the investment. He should be, and is, 
 vitally interested in that part of the subject of tiling; fully as much 
 as in any other part of it. It is a question which the average man 
 is unable to answer for himself, and he finds it very difficult to find 
 any unbiased advice or opinion on the subject. The Professors of our 
 colleges and experiment stations always avoid or side step the ques- 
 tion for fear of possible criticism of their motives. Realizing the im- 
 portance of the question, I have discussed it frankly and fearlessly in 
 the last chapter of this book, under the title of "What Tile To Use." I 
 am simply a farmer, with no "professional dignity" to preserve ; I am 
 writing this book for the benefit of farmers; I feel that this book 
 would be incomplete and unsatisfying to its readers without a discus- 
 sion of this subject. So I have discussed it and expressed my views 
 frankly and without any apology other than this explanation of my 
 reasons for doing so. 
 
 JAMES A. KING. 
 
 Otranto Station, Iowa 
 
 1918. 
 
Table of Contents 
 
 Page 
 CHAPTER I Tile Benefits in a Nutshell 1 
 
 Increases: the tillable acres, the yield quality of 
 farm products, farm value. Decreases: labor, crop 
 production costs, overhead. 
 
 CHAPTER II When Tiling is Necessary 4 
 
 When crops start slowly, do not grow well, or fire in 
 dry weather kinds of weeds which grow there if the 
 soil is tight when there are springy places when 
 there is standing water. 
 
 CHAPTER III When Tiling Gives the Proper Water Supply 6 
 
 Water requirements removes the surplus water in- 
 creases the supply of available capillary water restores 
 the capillary water in dry seasons. 
 
 CHAPTER IV How Tiling Gives The Proper Heat Supply 11 
 
 Heat needed for seed germination, for plant growth 
 how heat is stored in the soil how water effects 
 amount of heat absorbed by soil how to make cold 
 soil warm. 
 
 CHAPTER V How Tiling Gives The Proper Air Supply 16 
 
 Why air is needed how air enters the soil how tile 
 helps this ventilation. 
 
 CHAPTER VI How Tiling Increases Available Plant Food Supply 19 
 
 Sources of plant food how tile increases the available 
 food supply. 
 
 CHAPTER VII How Tiling Effects the Growing Season 21 
 
 Lets you plant earlier lets you cultivate quickly keeps 
 the plants growing all the time. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII How Tiling Reduces Costs of Production 23 
 
 How tiling effects labor increases production and so 
 decreases unit costs. 
 Summary of Tiling Benefits 25 
 
 CHAPTER IX How Tile Work 26 
 
 How water moves through soil why soil is wet how 
 this is overcome water table. 
 
 CHAPTER X Location of Drains 29 
 
 Laterals on level land laterals on rolling land spouty 
 spots in level land spouty spots on hill sides. 
 
 CHAPTER XI Distance between Laterals 33 
 
 Tightness of soil amount of rainfall levelness of sur- 
 face depth of tile. 
 
 CHAPTER XII How Deep to Lay Tile 36 
 
 Depth of water table water supply heat supply 
 frost level muck or peat soils water under pressure. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII What sizes of tile to use 40 
 
 How diameter effects capacity how grades effect capa- 
 city best sizes of laterals best sizes for mains. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV Some Very Important Points 45 
 
 When tiling do a good job plan your system carefully 
 connecting ditches making a turn 'making a joint 
 shaping the bottom surface intakes silt basins pro- 
 tect the outlets. 
 
 CHAPTER XV What Tile to Use 51 
 
 Why best tile is the cheapest buy of a reliable firm 
 cement tile clay tile. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI Why Denison Tile Are Best (fly Amos P. Potts} 56 
 
 The raw materials why we mix these two materials 
 the double process advantages of double process of 
 manufacture. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Tile Benefits 
 In a Nutshell 
 
 Increases the Tiling makes the best land out of your worst. The 
 tillable acres we ttest land on your farm is the richest. The rich- 
 ness of higher ground washes down onto it and 
 lodges there. But that richness is no good to you because you can't 
 work it. Tile that wet land and it is no longer wet. But it is ideally 
 moist for growing crops. It is that way all the time. What was your 
 worst land, is now your best. What was your most useless land, is 
 now your most useful. What was earning you nothing, is now earn- 
 ing you the most. 
 
 It is much cheaper to tile out the wet parts of your farm than it 
 is to buy another farm just like it, to increase your tillable acres. The 
 University of Minnesota reports its experience of this kind. The till- 
 able land of one of the University farms cost $129.72 an acre. The wet 
 land was tiled at a cost of $61.50 an acre. So that tiling increased the 
 tillable acres at less than one half the purchase price of land which 
 was no better, to say the least. 
 
 Increases the yield Many an untiled quarter section is producing 
 from tillable acres no more than is a neighboring eighty which 
 
 is well tiled, but which is no better in any 
 
 other way than is the quarter section. If that quarter section were 
 tiled it would produce as much as a half section of the same kind of 
 land it was before it was tiled. The annual production of the farm 
 would be doubled without increasing the cost of that production. 
 
 Increases the quality Profits from a farm are regulated largely by 
 of all farm products the q ualit 7 . of it? products. High quality 
 
 products bring higher prices than do those 
 
 of inferior quality. Tiled fields produce high quality products every 
 year. Untiled fields produce good quality crops only in very favor- 
 able seasons. Tiled lands pay profits every year. Untiled lands pay 
 profits only occasionally. 
 
 The farms which earned profits in the wet years of 1915 and 1917 
 were the ones which produced crops of good quality as well as of 
 large quantity. Those farms were well tiled. The farms which failed 
 to earn profits those years were the ones which produced crops of very 
 inferior quality, regardless of their quantity. Those farms were the 
 ones most in need of tiling. The same rains fell on the tiled fields as 
 fell on the untiled. The same cold winds blew across the one as blew 
 across the other. The same amount of sun shone on the untiled fields 
 as shone on the tiled. But the tiled fields produced larger yields, and 
 of far better quality, than did the untiled fields. And so the tiled 
 fields paid profits, while the untiled did not. 
 
 1 
 
Decreases the labor -A. gd seed bed is prepared with less labor 
 costs of production m we ^ t^d land than in untiled land. Crops 
 
 are kept well cultivated with less labor on 
 
 well tiled land than on untiled land. The yield is larger per acre on 
 the well tiled land than on the untiled. So that the labor cost is not 
 only less per acre, but it is a great deal less per bushel or per ton. 
 
 Decreases overhead 
 cost of production 
 
 Few men figure overhead cost, but it is a 
 fixed charge which should be deducted from 
 the gross income before crediting a year's 
 business with a profit. Where the land is well tiled, and so is pro- 
 ducing at full capacity, the interest on the money you have invested 
 in land is spread over a larger production of crops and of livestock 
 than where part of your land is so wet as to be partly or entirely 
 useless and unproductive. The interest and depreciation on the in- 
 vestment in machinery, buildings and other improvements is also 
 spread over a larger production of crops and of livestock. This makes 
 your overhead charge for interest and depreciation per unit of crop 
 or livestock production smaller on well tiled land than on untiled 
 land. 
 
 A close-up view of a part of the field shown on page 3. This photograph shows the 
 swamp-like condition before the land was tiled and shows why it paid no income to its owner. 
 
Increases the value Mare of the i^rm fortunes' ol'l'oaay have been 
 of your farm made from the increase in the market value of 
 
 the land than have been made by a gradual 
 
 accumulation of the net profits from working the land year after year. 
 By tiling the wet acres on your farm you increase its selling value, 
 because you have increased its producing value. The amount of that 
 increase will be greater than the cost of the tiling. 
 
 Tiling increases the renting value of your farm. By increasing 
 the yield from a farm you increase the share rent you get. By increas- 
 ing the yielding ability of a farm you increase the cash rent you can 
 get for it. Mr. John Horrigan had been renting his farm near Ply- 
 mouth, Iowa, for three dollars an acre. He tiled the entire farm at a 
 cost of thirty dollars an acre. Since tiling it he has gotten seven dol- 
 lars and a half an acre rent for it. 
 
 View of field part of which is shown on page 2. This photograph of an excellent crop of flax, 
 afte* the land was tiled, was taken two months after the one shown on page 2. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 When Tiling 
 Is Necessary 
 
 When crops O n practically every farm there will be found fields 
 start slowly or s P ots where the seeds sprout slower than on the 
 rest of the farm, or in the rest of that field. This is 
 because the surface layer of soil in which they have been planted is 
 cold and wet, and is lacking in air ; all three of which interfere with 
 the proper germination of the seed. Either the subsoil, or the surface 
 layer itself, is so tight that the surplus water cannot escape before it 
 has done damage to the germination of the seeds. 
 
 When crops do The stalks of the plants are smaller than they 
 
 not grow well should be. They are slender and spindling, the 
 
 leaves are narrow and thin instead of being broad 
 
 and thick. The color of them is a pale yellowish green, instead of be- 
 ing a rich dark green. In no respect are the plants as tall, large and 
 rugged as they are on the other parts of the farm. This is all indisput- 
 able evidence that the soil needs tiling. 
 
 When crops fire The crops growing on untiled ground are the first 
 
 in dry weather anywhere around to show damage from drought. 
 
 First the leaves wilt. They are not as crisp and 
 
 fresh looking as in other parts of the field or farm. Then they begin to 
 roll up, rolling from the edges in toward the midrib. In all respects 
 they show droopy and wilty. At the same time, the surrounding 
 crops on well tiled land are fresh, crisp and full of life. That plot 
 of ground is suffering from the effects of having had too much soil 
 water during the early part of the season. The roots could not pene- 
 trate deeply enough to have access to a deep supply of moisture in 
 these later stages of their growth. So they are the first to suffer from 
 dry weather. This in itself is sufficient proof that such a plot of 
 ground needs tiling. 
 
 Kind of weeds which If the most vigorous growing weeds found 
 grow there on a P^ ot ^ g roun d are those which grow 
 
 best in wet soil, then that plot of ground 
 
 needs tiling. If it did not need tiling, then you would not find these 
 weeds growing there more luxuriantly than any other place and 
 than any other weeds growing there as they cannot grow and thrive 
 well in a soil which is properly tiled, or naturally drained, for the 
 production of maximum yields of our standard grains and forage crops. 
 The following are among the most prominent and common of these 
 weeds which are found on our mid-western farms : Joint weed. Quack 
 grass. Devil's Shoestring, a large growing type of smartweed. Sorrel. 
 "Little Pine." Plantain. 
 
If the soil is Any field, or part of a field, needs tiling if the soil or 
 at all tight t ^ ie su bsoil is at all tight. Such soils will produce 
 larger and better crops year in and year out if they are 
 tiled than they will if they are not tiled. It matters not whether the 
 tight soil or subsoil is in a level or rolling field ; whether it is on a 
 hill top or at the bottom of the hill. As a heavy rain falls, the water 
 is not soaked into these tight soils fast enough to keep it from 
 standing on top or running off. It it stands on top it drowns out the 
 crops and interferes with the preparation of plant food. If it runs 
 off the surface of a rolling field, it washes away the mellow surface 
 soil. In either case it cannot store a good supply of capillary water. 
 
 When there are By a springy spot is meant a place where the soil 
 
 SDringv places remains wet and tough after the soil on all sides 
 
 of it is dry, or the excess water has disappeared 
 
 from it. These springy spots may be found on the top of a hill, on 
 the side of a hill, at the foot of one, or out in the middle of a com- 
 paratively level field. They indicate that there is below them a 
 layer of tough and impervious ground which the water cannot pene- 
 trate. Instead, it moves along the top of this tight layer until it 
 finds a place at or near the surface where it makes its appearance. 
 
 When there is Of course any one knows that a plot of ground or 
 
 standing water a field nee ds tiling when water stands on the sur- 
 face after a rain. But it also needs it just as much 
 if the water stands near the surface for any length of time. If you 
 cannot judge as to this from the condition of the crops growing on 
 the surface of the ground, then you, should dig down into the soil and 
 the subsoil and examine it for the depth of the water table. There 
 does not need to be water standing in the bottom of the hole you dig- 
 to indicate that the water table is there. The very fact that the soil 
 is so wet that the imprint of your fingers remains in a lump of it after 
 squeezing it tight is proof enough. If there is any question in your 
 mind as to whether or not the soil or the subsoil is tight, the question 
 may be settled easily. Dig a hole to the depth of a foot. Fill this 
 hole with water and see if the water stands in it for any length of 
 time. Dig holes to the depth of two feet, of three feet, and of four feet. 
 If the water stands for any length of time in any of these test holes then 
 the soil or subsoil below the surface of the water is too tight for the 
 best production of crops. It needs tiling. 
 
Corn on Tiled Land 
 
 These photographs were taken on the same 
 day in adjacent fields in which the soil condi- 
 tions were exactly the same except for the dif- 
 ference made by proper drainage. The field in 
 the photo above was tiled the year before, the 
 one in the photo below was not tiled. Compare 
 the height of the corn with Mr. King, who is 
 just under 6 feet tall. 
 
 e 
 
 Corn on Untiled Land 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 How Tiling Gives The 
 Proper Water Supply 
 
 Water re- Water is the most widely influential single factor in 
 quirements producing the best conditions for plant growth and 
 development. If only the proper amount of water is in 
 the soil, practically all other things necessary for the production of a 
 crop are in prime condition. If there is too much water, or not enough 
 of it, in the soil then these other things are also out of proper condition. 
 The water supply is quite completely under our control, and at a very 
 small annual cost per acre. Therefore it is most deserving of our very 
 careful consideration. 
 
 Soil water is best classed and discussed under two main heads ; 
 capillary water, and gravitational water. Capillary water is that which 
 clings to the surface of the granules of the soil. Gravitational water is 
 that which fills up the open spaces between the granules of the soil 
 when it rains, and then runs down thru the open spaces of the soil and 
 away if it has the chance. 
 
 Capillary water dissolves the food contained in the particles of the 
 soil. The roots of the plants absorb this food laden water and conduct 
 it to all parts of the plant where its load of food is taken from it and 
 used for building up the tissues of the plant. This water is to the 
 plants what the blood of an animal is to its body. It is the one kind 
 of soil water which is of direct benefit in the production of a crop. 
 
 As it sinks down thru the soil during and following a rain, the 
 gravitational water restores the supply of capillary water by re-wet- 
 ting the granules of the soil. It is very beneficial if it comes frequently 
 enough and in sufficient quantity to keep up the proper supply of capil- 
 lary water. But it is very harmful if it stays long enough to keep the 
 air out of the soil for more than twenty-four to forty eight hours ; it 
 smothers the plant roots and the soil bac- 
 teria, and makes the soil cold. 
 
 For the production of maximum crops, 
 the soil should contain approximately fifteen 
 to thirty-five per cent of its own weight in 
 water in the capillary form. Professor 
 Jeffery, formerly of the Michigan College 
 of Agriculture, states that sandy soils should 
 contain an amount of water equal to fifteen 
 per cent, loams twenty per cent, clays thirty 
 per cent and the finer clays thirty-five per individual grams of soil highly 
 
 r , . , . . , J r^, J , / magnified. 2. Represents a film 
 
 Cent OI their dry weight. 1 heSC quantities O f capillary water surrounding 
 
 should be kept as constant as possible during J* & '$ C ,/ 5 5SK 
 the periods of seed germination and plant grains of sou when there is no 
 
 * . surplus or gravitational water to 
 
 growth. fill those spaces. 
 
 6 
 
The following table shows the amount of capillary water used in 
 the production of different yields of five of our leading field crops, this 
 table being a modification of the reports of the late Professor F. H. 
 King of the Wisconsin College of Agriculture. 
 
 Crops and Yield Per Acre 
 
 Water 
 
 Needed 
 
 
 Inches per acre 
 
 Tons per acre 
 
 20 bushels of wheat 
 
 60 
 
 6800 
 
 35 bushels of wheat 
 
 105 
 
 11900 
 
 40 bushels of oats... 
 
 6.27 
 
 710.6 
 
 65 bushels of oats 
 
 10 19 
 
 11540 
 
 30 bushels of barley... 
 
 642 
 
 7274 
 
 45 bushels of barley 
 
 963 
 
 10914 
 
 40 bushels of corn 
 
 6.72 
 
 761 5 
 
 65 bushels of corn 
 
 1092 
 
 12370 
 
 100 bushels of potatoes 
 
 207 
 
 234.62 
 
 300 bushels of potatoes... 
 
 6.2 
 
 702.6 
 
 Notice carefully the amounts of water which these crops remove 
 from the soil in producing these different yields. In producing one 
 hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre, the plants use up enough 
 water to cover each acre of ground slightly over two inches deep. 
 In producing sixty five bushels of corn to the acre the plants use 
 enough water to cover the ground almost eleven inches deep. Re- 
 member that the water so used by the plants is only the capillary soil 
 water, that which clings to the surface of the granules or individual 
 particles of the soil. This table shows the great importance of making 
 the proper provision for storing an abundance of capillary water in 
 the soil where the roots of the plants can get it. Such provision is 
 made only by thoroly tiling, the land, as is explained in succeeding 
 paragraphs of this chapter. 
 
 Removes the There are only two ways in which the gravitational 
 
 ciivnluc -urafA*- or surplus water can escape from the soil. It must 
 surplus water t , 1-1 1 1 , , 1 
 
 escape thru the subsoil, or be evaporated into the 
 
 atmosphere. The latter is a very slow process, and uses up heat which 
 should be stored in the ground. The rapidity with which the first 
 process acts depends upon the character of the subsoil, the slope on 
 which it lies, and the natural outlets to which it leads. 
 
 Nature has not furnished in the various grades of clay, loam 
 and peaty or muck soils, or in their subsoils, the necessary channels 
 and outlets thru which this gravitational water can escape as rapidly 
 as it should for the good of the crops growing in those soils. Until 
 such channels and outlets are furnished, these soils are "sick" and 
 unproductive. The remedy must be provided by man before these soils 
 can possibly produce maximum crops at a maximum profit. The best 
 known method of furnishing such outlets, and developing the necessary 
 connecting channels thru the subsoil, is to do a good job of tiling. 
 
 Tiling furnishes channels in the subsoil to which the surplus 
 or gravitational water can run quickly and naturally, and thru which 
 it can escape into the open streams or natural outlets. These tile 
 ditches remove the surplus water which results from a rain storm be- 
 
fore it has remained in the soil long enough to do any damage to the 
 crops in the various ways which are explained more in detail in suc- 
 ceeding chapters of this book. 
 
 Increases the sup- The amount of capillary water which is avail- 
 ply of available a ^ e f r tne use f tne plants depends upon the 
 canillarv water followin g factors: (1) The depth to which the 
 plant roots penetrate into the soil and subsoil. 
 
 (2) The surface area of the particles into which the soil and subsoil 
 is divided, for it is the surface of the particles to which the capillary 
 water clings. (3) The amount of water which is supplied to the soil 
 thruout the season for the purpose of restoring the supply of capillary 
 water. 
 
 In a poorly drained soil the gravitational water stands near the 
 surface during the spring season when the root systems of the plants 
 are being formed. Plant roots cannot grow and live in the absence 
 of air. So they do not penetrate down into this portion of the soil or 
 subsoil in which gravitational water stands for any length of time. 
 The result is that in such soils the roots of the plants are confined to 
 a shallow upper layer of soil. When dry weather continues for any 
 length of time this top layer of soil in which the plant roots are con- 
 fined dries out and the growth of the crop is seriously retarded if 
 not stopped entirely for the want of sufficient water. 
 
 But in a well drained soil the gravitational water does not stand 
 for any length of time in the upper few feet of soil or subsoil. Then 
 as the root systems are being formed they are able to sink as deep as 
 it is their nature to sink, because they can find the supply of air 
 which they must have. It takes a much longer and more severe dry 
 spell to evaporate all the water from the entire layer of soil which is 
 occupied by the roots of the crops, than it does in the case of crops 
 growing on poorly drained land. 
 
 The result is that crops growing on a poorly drained field "fire" 
 quickly when a dry spell comes on. While those crops which were 
 planted on a well tiled soil continue to grow vigorously for a long time 
 and successfully and without injury, withstand a much longer con- 
 tinued dry or droughty spell than do those planted on a poorly drained 
 soil. 
 
 The total area of surface of soil particles which is wetted by 
 capillary water is much greater in a well tiled soil than in a poorly 
 drained one. The processes of alternate wetting and drying to which 
 the soil is subjected thruout the year determine the number of particles 
 into which the soil and the subsoil are broken up, and this determines 
 On UNTILED LftrfJD Cov On TILED j;/i/vr> 
 
 This drawing shows how tile increases 
 the available supply of moisture in dry 
 seasons by increasing the depth to which 
 plant roots penetrate in the spring season. 
 
the amount of surface area which is made available for water to cling 
 to. (By drying, is not meant the total removal of water from the soil, 
 but simply the removal of gravitational water from the open spaces of 
 the soil so that air can enter in the place of the water.) The well 
 tiled soil is dried out in this way after each rain. The poorly drained 
 soils are often not dried out in this way from the time of one rain to 
 the time of another, probably only a few times thruout the season. 
 
 So that the well tiled soil is far more thoroly pulverized than is 
 the poorly or undrained soil. It containes more open spaces and a 
 much larger total surface area of soil particles than does the untiled 
 soil. Consequently, as the gravitational water resulting from a rain 
 storm sinks down thru such a soil it soaks up more of that water, 
 and retains it in the form of capillary water, than does the untiled 
 soil. The well tiled soil will contain more actual pounds of capillary 
 water to the cubic foot than will the untiled soil. 
 
 The result is that the roots of the plants growing in a well tiled 
 soil not only have access to more cubic feet of soil than do those grow- 
 ing in an untiled soil. But they also have access to a soil which 
 contains more capillary water to the cubic foot than does the untiled 
 soil. So that tiling such a tight soil which is not properly drained by 
 nature enables it to store up from the rains a much larger supply of 
 available capillary water for the use of the plants during a season of 
 drought than it was able to store away for such use of the plants before 
 it was tiled. 
 
 Restores the capillary Tiling permits the supply of capillary 
 water in dry seasons water to be restored to the^soil in a dry 
 
 season when there are no rams. While it 
 
 takes the unnecessary water out of the soil in a wet season, it also 
 brings the necessary water into the soil in a dry season. Sounds 
 fishy, doesn't it? Well, it isn't fishy; it is facts. And here is the 
 explanation of how it works : 
 
 The ability of air to hold moisture increases or decreases with 
 the temperature of the air. Warm air will hold more water or moisture 
 than will cold air. If the air is only partly filled with moisture, and 
 you cool it down low enough, you finally reach a point where it is 
 "running over full," and it has to drop some of its moisture. This is 
 just what happens when it rains ; 
 a cold wind runs into a warm, 
 moist one and cools it down to a 
 point where it cannot hold all of 
 its water, but has to give it up in 
 the form of rain. 
 
 On hot days the soil is colder 
 than is the air above it. In well 
 tiled soils there is a constant 
 movement of air thru the entire 
 layer of soil above the tile. In dry 
 seasons the air which is blowing 
 across the fields already contains 
 a large percentage of moisture, 
 even tho it is still able to absorb 
 
 How tiling affects the water- 
 holding capacity of soils by 
 making them finer grained. i. 
 Shows surface area of piece of 
 soil 1 inch cubed. 2. Shows 
 surface^ area of same mass di- 
 vided into pieces */ 2 inch cubed. 
 3. Shows surface area of same 
 mass divided into pieces Yl inch 
 cubed. The water-holding ca- 
 pacity of soil 
 varies with its 
 surface area. 
 
 11 SQtN 
 
 9 
 
more moisture because of its high temperature. As it filters thru the 
 soil it becomes cooled, by coming in contact with the cooler soil thru 
 which it is moving. Finally before it again escapes from the soil it 
 has been cooled to a temperature low enough so that it is forced to 
 give up some of its moisture. This moisture is deposited on the sur- 
 face of the particles of soil with which the air is in contact. This re- 
 stores, to that extent, the supply of capillary moisture in the soil thru 
 which the air is circulating. It is just as tho a little rain storm or a 
 dew had taken place within the soil itself. 
 
 Thus a well tiled, porous soil is kept more moist in a dry season 
 than is the same kind of soil which is not well tiled, and thru which 
 the air cannot circulate so freely. The extent to which the supply of 
 capillary water is thus restored will depend upon the freedom with 
 which the air circulates thru the soil. The lines of tile greatly in- 
 crease the rapidity of this circulation of air thru the soil, just as ven- 
 tilating flues facilitate the circulation of air thru a building. 
 
 The author observed a very striking illustration of this effect 
 of tile drains in a system which he installed in a very wet farm a few 
 years ago. The system was completed by the first of June. That 
 summer was a very hot and dry one. When it came time to do the 
 fall plowing, that clay soil was very hard over most of the areas 
 lying in between the lines of tile. It was difficult to hold the plows in 
 the ground, and the soil was turned up in large chunks and lumps, 
 the plow being unable to pulverize it. But for a distance of several 
 feet on both sides of each line of tile, the soil was mellow and moist ; 
 it plowed easily and the plows pulverized it into a fine, mellow condi- 
 tion. Also the aftergrowth in the stubble on these moist, mellow strips 
 of soil was much heavier and greener than in the rest of the fields. 
 
 At that time the system had not been installed long enough for 
 the air passages to be increased in all the soil lying in between the 
 adjacent lines of tile. That is the reason the moist condition was 
 found only near the lines of tile. In succeeding years, the area so 
 effected spread until in time the entire areas in which lines of tile were 
 laid were in the same condition and show the same action in a dry 
 season. 
 
 Thus, by doing a good job of tiling, we are able to control the 
 supply of moisture in the soil which is available for the use of plants 
 to a much greater extent than nature herself is able to control it. We 
 are able to remove the surplus water from the soil in times of an 
 over supply. And yet we are not robbing the soil of any useful water 
 which would have been stored in it by this surplus for the future use 
 of the plants ; in fact, by removing it, we actually increase the amount 
 of useful water stored in the soil by it, which is available for the 
 use of the plants during future times of need. Furthermore, we enable 
 Nature to increase the supply of useful water in the soil during 
 drouthy seasons when there are no rains to store it in the ordinary 
 manner adopted by Nature. Laying tile in the ground is not go- 
 ing against Nature, it is actually helping her in the various ways she 
 works to keep crops supplied with their necessary supply of soil 
 moisture. We are helping her do her work in both wet seasons and in 
 dry seasons. 
 
 10 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 How Tiling Gives 
 The Proper Heat Supply 
 
 Heat needed for There is a certain temperature for each of our 
 seed germination cr P s below which their seeds will not germin- 
 ate. There is also another temperature above 
 
 which each kind of seed will not germinate. Somewhere in between 
 these two extremes there is found a temperature for each kind of seed 
 at which it germinates most quickly. This best temperature is gener- 
 ally near the highest rather than the lowest temperature at which 
 the seeds will germinate at all. The colder the soil, the longer it 
 takes the seed to both start and complete the process of germination. 
 The accompanying tables show how the temperature of the soil 
 not of the air above the soil effects the germination of several differ- 
 ent kinds of seeds. These temperatures have been determined by ex- 
 periments made at the leading experiment stations of the world. 
 The latter of these two tables brings home very forcibly the import- 
 ance of having the soil good and warm when the seeds are planted or 
 sown in it. 
 
 RANGE OF TEMPERATURES AT WHICH SEEDS HAVE BEEN 
 FOUND TO GERMINATE. 
 
 SEED 
 
 Lowest temp, at 
 which seed was 
 found to germinate 
 
 Temp, at which the 
 seed germinated 
 the quickest 
 
 Temp, above which 
 seeds would not 
 germinate 
 
 Wheat 
 
 41 Fahr. 
 
 81 Fahr. 
 
 104 Fahr. 
 
 Barley 
 
 41 
 
 83 
 
 104 
 
 Peas . . 
 
 44^ 
 
 84 
 
 102 
 
 Corn 
 
 48 
 
 93 
 
 115 
 
 Squash 
 
 54 
 
 
 115 
 
 Red Clover.... 
 
 42 
 
 70 
 
 
 DAYS REQUIRED FOR THE FIRST SPROUT TO COME OUT OF THE SEED WHEN 
 THE SEEDS WERE KEPT AT THE TEMPERATURES INDICATED 
 IN THE TABLE 
 
 SEEDS 
 
 Days required at the temperatures indicated below 
 
 41 degrees 
 
 51 degrees | 60 degrees | 65 degrees 
 
 Barley-wheat 
 
 6 days 
 
 7 
 7^ " 
 8 
 
 7 
 5 
 
 4 
 22 
 
 3 days 
 
 ey 2 " 
 
 3 
 
 4y 2 " 
 ny 2 " 
 W 
 
 3 
 
 2y 2 
 
 9 
 
 ey 2 
 
 2 & 
 
 434 
 
 W 
 
 2 
 
 VA 
 
 21/4 
 
 W 
 
 1034 
 
 sy 4 
 ^A 
 
 iys 
 
 134 d; 
 
 4y 4 
 i 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 2 
 
 134 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 334 
 3 
 
 tys 
 > 
 
 Beans 
 
 Red Clover 
 
 Flax 
 
 Corn 
 
 Oats 
 
 Peas 
 
 Pumpkin 
 
 Rye 
 
 Sugar beets 
 
 Timothy 
 
 
 Examine very closely the number of days required at the differ- 
 ent temperatures of the soil for wheat, barley, clover, corn, oats and 
 
 11 
 
sugar beets to germinate. Notice that anywhere from five to nineteen 
 days may be lost from the total growing season of these crops because 
 the soil is too cold to give their seeds a good start. These five to 
 nineteen days are lost from the most vitally important part of the 
 growing season. 
 
 In a series of tests covering a period of five years, made at the 
 same latitude as northern Iowa, it was found that at no time did the 
 monthly average soil temperature equal any of the temperatures 
 shown in the second column of the first table the ones at which the 
 various seeds germinated the quickest. Not until June did these 
 monthly average soil temperatures reach -sixty degrees. During April 
 the temperature averaged thirty-five and forty degrees. During May it 
 averaged about fifty-five degrees. A poorly drained soil will have a 
 temperature considerably below these averages which were determined 
 for the soils of state agricultural experiment stations, which are al- 
 ways above the average in quality. It is only well tiled soils which 
 will give temperatures equal to these averages, which are still below 
 those needed for the best germination of the seeds. 
 Heat needed for The nitrogen fixing bacteria which live on the 
 the plant growth roots f clover, alfalfa, and other legumes live and 
 work best at a soil temperature of ninety to one 
 
 hundred degrees. There are other kinds of bacteria which prepare the 
 food elements of the soil for the use of the plants ; these live and work 
 best at a soil temperature of eighty-five to ninety-eight degrees. They 
 woik only slowly when the temperature of the soil is below fifty-four. 
 
 The plant roots absorb water most rapidly at soil temperatures of 
 from 80 to 95 degrees. At temperatures of fifty and sixty or below 
 they absorb water much more slowly than at these higher tempera- 
 tures. This is why plants growing in a warm soil will appear to be al- 
 most bursting with the water they contain are luscious, crisp and brit- 
 tle when the same kind of plants growing at the same time in a cold soil 
 will be limp and lacking in moisture content, will be practically wilted. 
 
 Thus we see that the temperatures at which the soil bacteria work 
 best are also the temperatures at which the crops themselves feed 
 most rapidly. The result is that the soil temperatures at which our 
 standard field crops grow most rapidly lie between eighty-five degrees, 
 for wheat and ninety-three to ninety-five, for corn. This is several 
 degrees higher than the average temperatures of our soils during 
 the principal growing season of April to September. Therefore it is 
 very important that we should do everything in our power to aid 
 the soil in receiving and storing all the heat it can. The principal way 
 in which we can do this is to keep all the surplus water out of it. 
 How heat is stored The chief source of the heat found in the top 
 in the soil l a y er f soils in which our plants grow is the 
 sun. As the sun's rays shine upon the surface 
 
 of the soil they cause it to become warmed. A field sloping to the 
 south will be warmed more than will one sloping to the north, for the 
 amount of heat "deposited" in the soil depends upon how nearly to 
 the perpendicular the sun's rays strike its surface. If the surface of 
 the soil is mellow and finely pulverized more heat will be stored in 
 it than if it were rough and cloddy. These lumps or clods reflect a 
 part of the sun's rays and so keep them from entering the soil. Some 
 
 12 
 
of the heat which does enter the lumps of dirt is deflected and given 
 off from them into the surrounding air instead of into the soil beneath. 
 If the larger lumps rest on still smaller ones, so that there is a cushion 
 of air between the larger lump and the soil beneath, this air cushion 
 prevents heat from being transmitted from the lump down into the 
 soil below. 
 
 As the sun's heat penetrates into the soil it warms up, or raises 
 the temperature of, the soil and the water which it contains. Natural- 
 ly the top layer of soil is warmer than is that below it. Only the 
 heat which is stored in the upper layer of soil passes down into the 
 lower layers of soil or subsoil. If a large amount is stored in the 
 surface layer, there is much to be passed on down into the subsoil ; 
 if only a small amount is stored in the surface layer, there is only a 
 little available to pass on down into the subsoil. 
 
 We have what are known as warm soils and cold soils. This 
 difference is due to the character of the soils themselves rather than 
 to any difference in the amount of sunshine which reaches either of 
 them. The warm soil is warm because a large amount of the sun's 
 heat is absorbed by it. The cold soil is cold because only a small 
 amount of heat from the sun has been absorbed by it. The amount 
 of water which may be contained in a soil is the chief factor in de- 
 termining whether or not it is able to absorb heat from the sun. Now 
 let us see how this works. 
 
 I T OW water affects By experiment it has been found that the 
 
 .1 f L__I. amount of heat required to raise the temper- 
 
 the amount of heat ature of Qne pou ^ d of water Qne degree . g 
 
 absorbed by the SOU su ffi c i ent fo raise one degree the tempera- 
 ture of four pounds of dry peat, and five pounds of sand, clay or loam 
 soils which are per- 
 fectly dry. Also, the 
 amount of heat re- 
 quired to evaporate * 100 
 one pound of water 
 is sufficient to raise 
 one degree the tem- 
 perature o f 966.6 
 pounds of water. This '* 
 means that in evapo- I40 
 rating one pound of 
 water enough heat // O o 
 has been used up to 
 raise one degree the 
 temperature of 3,866 
 pounds of dry peat 
 or 4,833 pounds of ]J^, 
 dry sand, clay or 
 loam soils. 
 
 Since it requires 
 more heat to warm 
 up water than it does 
 
 S300 
 
 ZOOO 
 
 /Q00 
 
 /6OO 
 
 n 
 
 The diagonal black line in this chart represents the increased 
 
 ... , amount of heat required to warm a soil as its water content is 
 
 tO Warm Up SOll, then increased as represented by the black tops of the white columns. 
 
 13 
 
it also requires more heat to warm up a wet soil than it does to warm 
 up a dry soil ; the wetter a soil is, the more heat is required to raise its 
 temperature one degree. So that the "Warmth" of a soil, on a certain 
 day, will depend upon the amount of water which it contains ; a dry 
 soil will be warm, while a wet soil will be cold, even tho the same 
 amount of sun's heat has shone upon the two of them. Our principal 
 soils are in the best condition for the germination of seeds and the 
 growth of plants when they contain the following amounts of capil- 
 lary water, and no surplus or gravitational water ; sand, an amount of 
 water equal to fifteen per cent of its own dry weight; loam, twenty 
 per cent; clay, thirty per cent; fine clay, about thirty-five per cent. 
 So it requires approximately two and one half times as much heat to 
 raise the temperature of one pound of surplus water as it does to raise 
 the temperature of one pound of properly moistened soil the same 
 amount. And the amount of heat required to evaporate one pound 
 of surplus water would raise the temperature of about 2,400 pounds 
 of properly moistened soil one degree. 
 
 The accompanying chart, prepared by Professor Jeffery, former- 
 ly of the Michigan College of Agriculture, illustrates very forcefully 
 this effect of the water content of a soil on the amount of heat re- 
 quired to raise its temperature. This chart takes into account only 
 the problem of warming the surplus water in the soil, not of evapor- 
 ating this surplus water. 
 
 Surplus or gravitational water, which must be evaporated to be 
 gotten rid of, is the chief factor which keeps a soil cold. All heat used 
 in evaporating this surplus water is lost so far as warming the soil 
 is concerned. We can understand somewhat the reason for this when 
 we remember that the heat consumed in evaporating one pound of this 
 surplus water would warm over 2,400 pounds of normally moist soil 
 one degree. A series of tests made at the Wisconsin State Experi- 
 ment Station, and covering a term of years, shows that the heat 
 used during twenty-four hours in evaporating the water from a wet 
 soil is enough greater than that used in evaporating water from a 
 normally moist soil to raise the temperature of the top one foot layer 
 of that normally moist soil twenty-four degrees. 
 
 This is heat which is lost from the wet soil. It is heat which is 
 stored in the normally moist soil. Being used up in evaporating this 
 surplus water from the wet soil, it is never again available to aid in 
 the production of a crop on that ground. Stored in the normally moist 
 soil and its subsoil, it is fed back again into the surface soil and into 
 the air above it for the use of the crops growing on it during a series 
 of cold days when the sun is not giving heat to the soil. 
 
 Any crop trying to grow on that wet soil is retarded at the time 
 it is wet because the air is driven out of the soil. It is also retarded 
 later on because the soil has been robbed of that much heat which it 
 should have stored up as a reserve to be used from later when a cold 
 snap comes. 
 
 The heat lost by a wet soil in one day is in itself a serious matter. 
 But think how much worse it becomes if it is overly wet for several 
 days at a time, and several times during the year. The total amount 
 of heat lost by that wet soil in one year is equal to this loss of one 
 day multiplied by the total number of days in the season that the soil 
 
 14 
 
is wet and the heat of the sun is being used to evaporate this surplus 
 water rather than for warming the soil. It is bad enough for one 
 day only. But by the end of the season it has grown into a calamity. 
 
 No wonder a wet soil is cold. No wonder crops grow slowly on 
 it and give only light yields of poor quality especially corn. No won- 
 der well tiled soils are warm by contrast and give much larger yields 
 of much better quality. 
 
 How to make A soil is "cold" because the heat delivered to it 
 
 a cold soil warm ^y the sun is used in evaporating surplus water 
 
 from it, rather than being stored in the soil. In 
 
 the same way a man is poor if the money he earns is spent for some- 
 thing which does him no good rather than being deposited in a savings 
 bank or being invested in something which will bring him an income. 
 In order to make that soil warm we must remove that surplus water 
 irom it in some other way than by evaporating it with the heat from 
 the sun. If we remove this surplus water as rapidly as it comes into 
 the soil the heat of the sun will be used in warming up the soil itself. 
 
 The one successful way to do this is to tile all land which is wet 
 or "cold." The tile will remove the surplus water from the soil as 
 rapidly as it enters from a rainstorm. In fact, all clay, loam and peaty 
 soils are much better off for having a thoro and complete system of 
 tile, even tho we do not consider them to be "wet" soils. The gravita- 
 tional water percolates down thru them slowly at best. They also 
 gradually open up these soils so that the water settles down thru them 
 more rapidly. Thus the tile change a cold soil into a warm one by per- 
 mitting the sun's heat to be used in warming the soil rather than in 
 warming or evaporating unnecessary water which would stand in the 
 soil until evaporated if it were not for the tile. 
 
 15 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 How Tiling Gives 
 The Proper Air Supply 
 
 \Vhy air Seeds will not germinate without air, it is absolute!} 
 is needed necessary for the chemical processes which take place 
 within the seeds during germination. Seeds planted in a 
 water logged soil from which all air is excluded absorb the water 
 which is necessary for germination. But if air is not admitted to the 
 soil and the seeds within a few days after they are planted no other 
 part of the process of germination will take place, and in time the 
 seeds mold or rot and so entirely lose their ability to germinate. If 
 air is admitted to them before they have entirely lost their vitality 
 they will germinate. But their germination and the succeeding growth 
 of the young plants will be much slower than if the proper supply of 
 air had been present when the seeds were planted. 
 
 Roots cannot feed the plants if there is no air in the soil ; they 
 must have air or they cannot absorb the food laden water of the soil. 
 If they are robbed of air for a few days, the roots will die ; they drown 
 just as an animal drowns, tho not so quickly. If all of the roots die, 
 the entire plant will die. If only a part of the roots are drowned, the 
 entire plant will not die but it will be weakened and its development 
 retarded because it cannot get as much food as it needs. 
 
 Food cannot be prepared for the use of the plants without the 
 presence of air in the soil. These plant foods are prepared for absorp- 
 tion by the roots by the action of certain kinds of soil bacteria. These 
 must have air or they cannot do their work. The nitrogen fixing bac- 
 teria which live on the roots of clover, alfalfa, and allied plants get 
 their nitrogen from the air contained in the soil. They must also 
 have the oxygen of pure air or they can not perform their work of stor- 
 ing or fixing nitrogen in the root nodules. 
 
 In the soil there are certain bacteria which have the unusual 
 ability to "manufacture" oxygen for their own use when there is no 
 fresh air admitted to the soil to supply it to them. They attack the 
 nitrates which have been prepared for the use of the plants by other 
 bacteria. They decompose these nitrates and take the oxygen from 
 them for their own selfish uses. Thus these bacteria become oxygen 
 thieves when they get oxygen hungry. Professor Jeffery reports that 
 soils which contained large quantities of nitrates have been found to 
 contain hardly a trace after being in a water logged condition for 
 three days. 
 
 The germination of seeds and the growth of plants use up and 
 foul the air of the soil just as the breathing of animals uses up and 
 fouls the air in a building. The foul and exhausted air of the soil 
 must be replaced with fresh, pure air just as it must be replaced 
 
 16 
 
in a building containing animals or human beings, and for the same 
 reason. If this ventilation of the soil is not carried on continuously, 
 or accomplished quickly at frequent intervals, the plants will die. 
 
 So improper ventilation of the soil does damage in these ways : 
 The absence of all air prevents the germination of seeds and the 
 feeding of the plants, by their roots. If continued long enough it will 
 kill the roots of the plants. The lack of fresh air retards the germina- 
 tion of seeds and the growth of plants. Either the absence of all 
 air, or failure to replace old air with fresh, will cause the destruction 
 of the nitrates, one of the most important classes of plant foods found 
 in the soil. 
 
 How air en- The very weight of the air itself causes it to sink 
 ters the soil down into the soil when there are open spaces for it 
 to enter. If the barometer falls, so that the air be- 
 comes lighter and less dense, some of the air rises out of the soil. 
 Then when the barometer rises, so that the air becomes heavier and 
 more dense, fresh air sinks down into the soil again. This action 
 in itself will produce a little movement of air thru the soil from day 
 to day. 
 
 As the soil becomes warmer, due to a hot sunshiny day, the 
 air contained in it expands and some of it rises out of the soil. When 
 the soil cools again at night the air contained irn it shrinks, thus mak- 
 ing more room which is filled with fresh air from above ground. 
 
 The blowing of the wind across the surface of the field causes 
 the air to move into and out of the soil to a greater or a less extent. 
 The natural tendency of the air to slowly move back and forth, up and 
 down, and around causes a certain amount of circulation of the air 
 thru the soil. 
 
 The forces mentioned in the above three paragraphs will, alone, 
 produce satisfactory ventilation in the thinner upper layer of surface 
 soil if it is open and porous and is not crusted over so as to prevent 
 the passage of the air. But its effect is not so great on the air con- 
 tained in the lower layers of the soil known as the subsoil. This 
 subsoil must have a good "airing out" about ever so often just as we 
 find it necessary to air out a house or a barn, or to draw a few deep 
 breaths, occasionally. The gravitational water resulting from a good 
 rainstorm is what gives the subsoil this necessary occasional airing out. 
 
 As the surplus water from a rainstorm sinks down into the soil 
 it fills up the pores or open spaces of the soil. This forces the air 
 out of the soil. Then as the gravitational water disappears from the 
 pores of the soil, fresh air comes into it to take the place of this water. 
 In this way all the old air is driven out and a completely new supply 
 of fresh air is admitted to take its place. 
 
 How tile help Tile ditches furnish outlets thru which the air can 
 this ventilation esca P e readily from the lower level of the subsoil 
 as it is being driven out by the descending water. 
 This prevents the formation of an "air cushion" in very fine grained 
 soils which would tend to retard the descent of the water. This 
 permits the water to descend into a fine grained subsoil more rapidly 
 than it can when there are no tile ditches in it. 
 
 17 
 
The tile also furnish channels thru which the gravitational water 
 can escape after it has performed its two functions of restoring the 
 supply of capillary water and driving out the dead air from the soil. 
 It should not be permitted to remain in the soil an hour after doing 
 these things ; every hour it remains, it is doing damage in some one of 
 the ways already mentioned. It does no good to drive out the old air 
 if no fresh air is admitted in its place, and this is just what happens 
 after a heavy rain in untiled clay and loam soils. 
 
 Tile make these fine grained, tight soils, more porous so that 
 the air and the water sink into them more rapidly, and so the air 
 circulates thru them more readily and easily, thus aiding in this im- 
 portant work of ventilating the soil. This is how tile do this : 
 
 When a wet clay or loam soil dries out, it shrinks. This shrink- 
 age produces cracks which run in different directions thru the soil 
 and produce passages for the air and the water. The next time the 
 soil is saturated with water, it swells out into and fills up these cracks. 
 If the surplus water stands very long, the soil becomes recemented 
 into one solid mass. When it dries out again, it again breaks up into 
 only about the same number of chunks and forms only about the same 
 number of passages as before. 
 
 If tile ditches are placed in such a soil to remove the gravitational 
 water as rapidly as it reaches them, the water will not remain long 
 enough to recement the soil into the one solid mass. As it dries out 
 after a wetting, each of the former pieces into which the soil has al- 
 ready been divided is broken up into several smaller ones. Finally, 
 after a year or so depending on the character of the soil, this alter- 
 nate wetting and drying of these well tiled soils will cause them to 
 become finely pulverized. This pulverizing of these tight soils thus 
 increases the rapidity with which water sinks into and escapes from 
 the soils ; this, in turn, increases the rapidity with which the foul air 
 is replaced by fresh air. 
 
 18 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 How Tiling Increases The 
 Available Plant Food Supply 
 
 Sources of The more important elements used as plant foods are 
 plant food carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, potassium, phos- 
 phorous, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, chlorine and 
 iron. The carbon is obtained from the air, being taken in thru the 
 leaves of the plant in the form of carbon dioxide a combination of 
 carbon and oxygen. The needed oxygen and hydrogen are obtained 
 from the soil water, or from the air in the soil. All the others are 
 obtained from the soil in the form of various compounds, combinations 
 with other elements. They are dissolved by the capillary water of the 
 soil and then absorbed by the roots and conducted to all parts of the 
 plant in the same way in which our blood conducts the necessary 
 nourishment to the various parts of our body. 
 
 The bulk of these food elements contained in the soil are in such a 
 form, or exist as such compounds, that they cannot be dissolved by the 
 soil water, or at least such that they cannot be used by the plants. 
 Nature provides means in a good soil for changing these into com- 
 pounds which can be dissolved by the capillary water and used by the 
 plant. The chief means thus provided is a variety of bacteria which 
 live in the soil. As these carry on their regular life processes and 
 activities, they change these compounds into other compounds which 
 can be used by the plants. We have already learned how the supply 
 of air and of heat in the soil effect the activities of these soil bacteria. 
 
 How tile increases the We have already learned how tile increase 
 available food SUDD!V ^ e warm th of the soil and stimulate the 
 
 ventilation or replenishing of the air sup- 
 ply. By increasing the heat and the fresh air in the soil the activity 
 of these soil bacteria is stimulated. The result is that more food is 
 made available for the use of the plants in a well tiled soil than in a 
 similar soil which is not well tiled. By supplying plenty of fresh air, 
 the tile prevent the oxygen thieves, or the "denitrifying bacteria" from 
 decomposing the nitrates, or nitrogen compounds which have been 
 made ready for the use of the plants, and so robbing the plants of 
 this very necessary food. Thus it is seen that tile will increase the 
 amount of food which is made available for the plants in each cubic 
 foot of the soil. 
 
 Tile also increase the total number of cubic feet of soil from 
 which the plants can obtain food. The tile keep the gravitational wa- 
 ter out of the soil to a greater depth, and admit heat and air to a 
 greater depth, than in untiled land. This permits these food prepar- 
 ing bacteria to live in a deeper layer of soil. It also permits the roots 
 of the plants to penetrate to a greater depth than they can in an un- 
 tiled soil of the same character. 
 
 19 
 
Thus it is seen that tile increase the available supply of food in 
 two ways. The amount of food which the plants can use is increased 
 in each cubic foot of soil. The number of cubic feet of soil in which 
 the food is prepared, and thru which the plant roots penetrate in their 
 search of food, is increased. So tiling a field increases the yields of 
 crops obtained from it by increasing the supply of food made avail- 
 able for the use of the plants. 
 
 20 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 How Tiling Effects 
 The Growing Season 
 
 Lets you Tiled ground is ready to plant as soon as the weather 
 Plant earlier warms up in the spring. Surplus water is removed 
 from the ground without delay. All of the available 
 heat of the sun is used to warm up the soil, none of it is wasted in 
 evaporating surplus water from the soil. You never have to wait for a 
 tiled field to dry out so you can work it. As soon as the frost is out of 
 the ground in the spring the soil is dry enough for you to plow it or do 
 any other work which is necessary to get it ready for planting or seed- 
 ing. As soon as the season has advanced far enough to do away with 
 all danger of damage by frost or freezing, the field is dry enough and 
 warm enough for you to put the seed into it. You may have to wait 
 on the weather man, but you never have to wait on the ground. And 
 that is certainly a great relief to you in a backward spring. 
 
 Lets you cul- Within twenty-four hours or less after a heavy rain 
 tivate quickly storm y u can g i nto a well tiled field and cultivate 
 it. For fields of untiled tight soils, such as the clays 
 and loams, you have to wait several days before you can get into them 
 with a cultivator. This permits the tiled fields to be cultivated more 
 often than can the untiled fields. This more frequent cultivation 
 keeps the weeds down better, conserves better the moisture in the 
 soil and stimulates the growth of the plants more. This increases 
 the rapidity of the growth of the plants and so increases the effective- 
 ness of the available growing season. 
 
 Keeps the plants Plants growing in well tiled soil never stand 
 growing all the time sti11 for the want of heat, air or food. Every 
 
 day of the season they are right on the job, 
 
 busy at their task of growing and producing a crop of grain or of 
 forage. But those which are growing in an untiled field have to stand 
 still for one or more days after each rain. The surplus water standing 
 in the soil keeps out the air which they must have in order for the 
 roots to absorb food laden water. Those days that the soil is cold 
 because the heat of the sun is being used to evaporate surplus water 
 from the soil, instead of furnishing its heat to the soil, to the food 
 preparing bacteria, and to the plant roots, the growth is very slow if 
 there is any at all. 
 
 The result is that crops on untiled fields cannot grow all of the 
 days of the growing season, while those on well tiled fields are busy 
 every day. There are many days when the crops on untiled fields 
 grow only very slowly, but those on well tiled fields grow rapidly 
 every day ; the only factors left to effect the rate of their growth are the 
 
 21 
 
fertility of the soil and the warmth of the air, factors which have the 
 same effect on the untiled fields. 
 
 The sum and substance of the matter is this: Tiling advances 
 the growing season; it permits you to prepare and plant a field sooner 
 than you can an untiled field the same season and in the same com- 
 munity; this gives you an actually longer growing season for your 
 crops, and increases its length in the spring when plant growth of 
 the bulk of our standard crops is most rapid. It gives the plants a 
 quick start; this makes them strong and vigorous so that they grow 
 more vigorously all the rest of the year; a quick start gives a strong 
 growth and a large yield. It gives them more active growing days 
 than have crops planted in an untiled field. So that tiling lengthens 
 the growing season, lets the crops grow each day of that longer sea- 
 son, and makes them grow more vigorously each day than they can 
 on untiled fields. 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 How Tiling Reduces 
 Costs of Production 
 
 Cost of The only cost of production which most men figure is 
 
 production t ^ lat ^ ^bor. Many count as a labor cost only that 
 labor which they have to hire, they figure wages for 
 their own labor as a part of the profits of the business. But this is 
 not correct, you should figure wages for yourself and all other mem- 
 bers of the family just the same as you figure wages for the help you 
 have to hire. And these wages of yourself and the other members of 
 the family should be deducted from the total or gross income from 
 the business before you figure any of your income as being profits from 
 the business. 
 
 What are known as overhead costs make up a considerable list of 
 charges which should also be deducted from the gross income before 
 you begin to count profits. These overhead costs include the following 
 charges : Interest on the total investment, whether in land, buildings, 
 machinery or equipment of all kinds. Taxes and insurance. Depre- 
 ciation on buildings, fences, machinery and equipment. 
 
 Then added to these labor and overhead costs are the costs for 
 seed, fertilizers and so forth. These are actual charges against the 
 costs of producing a crop whether we buy them or produce them our- 
 selves. And all of these costs are the same whether the yield from 
 the land is large or is small. What is known as the unit cost of pro- 
 duction is determined by dividing the total cost by the total units 
 of production, the total number of bushels or tons of the product. 
 
 How tiling On a well tiled farm 'all the fields are regular in shape. 
 effects labor They are not cut up by sloughs, pond holes and wet 
 spots. This makes a very material difference in all 
 the labor operations involved in the production of a crop from a field. 
 The author had experience with one fifteen acre field which had 
 fourteen sides to it, because of two irregularly shaped sloughs which 
 cut into it. This irregularity in shape of this field' increased the labor 
 required on it fully twenty-five per cent over what it would have 
 been had the owners tiled it so as to give a regularly shaped twenty 
 acre field. 
 
 The soil of the tiled field is mellow, that of the untiled field is 
 tough and the footing for the horses is heavy. The result is that 
 horses and men can do more work in a day in the well tiled field than 
 they can in the untiled one. Fewer operations are required to make 
 the soil fine and mellow for the planting of the seed. It requires less 
 work to keep down the weeds on tiled land than on untiled ; the more 
 .troublesome weeds do not grow on it, and you can get onto the ground 
 
 23 
 
at any time so as to kill the weeds while they are still small and 
 easily killed. The tiled ground will give larger yields than will the 
 untiled, and so the labor of harvesting or gathering the crop will be 
 somewhat greater especially in the case of corn. But this increased 
 cost of harvesting will be practically balanced by the saving in the 
 labor of production. 
 
 Increases production What is called the unit cost of production is 
 and so decreases t ^ ie cost ^ producing each bushel or each 
 
 ton, or other unit of measure, of the crop 
 
 unit costs produced. This is determined by dividing 
 
 the total cost of production by the total number of units of the crop 
 produced. So that a large production will give a low unit cost of 
 production, while a small yield will give a large unit cost of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 Tiled land will give larger yields than will untiled lands. It 
 will do this without increasing the gross or total costs. Therefore 
 tiled lands give a crop at a lower unit cost of production than do 
 untiled lands. The price you receive for a crop is the same per unit, 
 per bushel or per ton, whether you have a large yield or a small 
 yield. So the tiled land will give you larger profits than will the 
 untiled land. 
 
 24 
 
Summary of 
 Tiling Benefits 
 
 The benefits which result from doing a good job of tiling may 
 be summed up very briefly as follows : 
 
 1. It gives the proper water supply. 
 
 2. It gives the proper heat supply. 
 
 3. It gives the proper air supply. 
 
 4. It increases the available supply of plant food. 
 
 5. It advances the growing season. 
 
 6. It lengthens the effective growing season. 
 
 7. It increases the rate of growth. 
 
 8. It increases the tillable acres of your farm. 
 
 9. It increases the yield from your tillable acres. 
 
 10. It increases the quality of all your field products. 
 
 11. It decreases the labor cost of producing your crops. 
 
 12. It decreases the overhead cost of producing your crops. 
 
 13. It increases the value of your farm. 
 
 These benefits are not confined to swamps and excessively wet 
 land, only. They are to be had from tiling well done in any tight 
 soil. It is a mistaken idea that tiling is beneficial only on very wet 
 lands. It will take only a few years for the increased income to 
 repay all costs of tiling a field which is ordinarily considered to be 
 a pretty fairly dry field. 
 
 25 
 
Steps in the Installation of an Efficient 
 Tile Drainage System. 
 
 gineers 
 
 
 : . 
 
 *"<*, tr ue to a ,,, 
 
Digging the second spading. 
 
 
 
 
 '. 
 
Laying the 
 
 of tile. 
 
A. tile system with the main ditch dug up a central drain, the laterals coining into 
 it from both sides on the "Herring Bone" plan. 
 
 \ mm 
 
 
 BHBi * 
 
 
 Digging the ditch by machinery. A very good, and a labor-saving way. 
 always lay the tile by hand never by machinery. 
 
 But 
 
 Fillina ditch with a 
 disc harrow. A quick 
 and good "way, as ihe 
 dirt is "well pulverized 
 no big chunks. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 How Tile Work 
 
 How water moves The natural tendency for water is to move 
 
 through soil straight down. This is due to the action of the 
 
 force of gravity. This force pulls the water 
 
 downward thru the soil just the same as it makes the rain or any other 
 object fall to the surface of the earth. 
 
 But the particles of soil with which the drops of water come in 
 contact on their downward journey interfere with them, they are 
 obstacles in the path of the drops of water. The water cannot pass 
 directly thru these particles of soil, it travels only thru the channels 
 or open spaces between them. So when it strikes one of them, it moves 
 to one side or the other until it finds a continuation of the channel 
 which leads downward. In this way the water tends to move down- 
 ward in a slanting direction, rather than perpendicularly. 
 
 \Vhy soil This surplus water keeps on moving downward until it 
 is wet reacnes a layer of earth so tight and impervious that it 
 is unable to pass thru it. If this tight layer is practically 
 level there is no means for the water to escape. If the rains are heavy 
 enough and frequent enough, this upper layer of soil becomes saturated 
 with water. The only escape for it is the slow process of evaporation. 
 The entire area of level land underlaid with this layer of tight subsoil 
 must be tiled or it will always be too wet to grow crops successfully. 
 
 If this tight layer has any slope, the water moves down along its 
 surface until it reaches the lowest point available. As the water moves 
 down along this sloping surface of the impervious layer, it is joined by 
 other water which has sunk downward from the surface of the soil 
 above it. This naturally adds to the amount of water which moves 
 along the next section of this tight layer. Finally a point is reached 
 where this accumulation of soil water is so great as to completely 
 saturate the soil clear to its surface, even without the addition of any 
 more water coming down from above. This point may be reached long 
 before the lowest point of the slope has been reached. 
 
 This is because the soil water has to move a considerable distance 
 horizontally in getting even a short distance downward. It is also be- 
 cause it must move slowly, rather than freely as in an open stream. 
 This slowness will depend upon the slope of the tight layer of subsoil 
 and upon the character of the soil thru which it is moving. In any case 
 a point is finally reached where the soil must be relieved of this ac- 
 cumulation of slowly sideways moving water or it will appear as a 
 wet spot on the surface of the slope, and all that portion of the slope 
 below it will be wet for the same reason. 
 
 26 
 
How this Lines of tile furnish subterranean passages or chan- 
 
 ne l s f r the removal of this soil water before it has 
 
 111 1 . re- 
 
 had a chance to accumulate in sufficient quantity to 
 do damage. These tile ditches furnish channels thru which the water 
 can escape more easily and quickly than by evaporation from the sur- 
 face of the level land, or than by making its way slowly along the 
 surface of the tight subsoil in the sloping land. Water is like every- 
 thing else, it always moves along the lines of least resistance, or those 
 which offer the least difficulty to its movement. 
 
 Some times a few lines of tile will collect all of this water and 
 each line deliver its collection direct to the natural outlet. But in 
 most cases there is no outlet to which each ditch can deliver its ac- 
 cumulation of water without carrying it a considerable distance thru 
 ground which has no need of tiling. In such cases they are all made 
 to dump their individual accumulations of water into one larger tile 
 ditch which then carries it all to the outlet. This is much cheaper 
 than to have each of the ditches extended' to the natural outlet. These 
 individual ditches are then called "laterals" and the one larger ditch is 
 called a "main." 
 
 Again it often happens that there are several wet spots, all of 
 which finally feed into the same natural outlet. A set of laterals is 
 laid in each of these wet spots, and these are connected into a larger 
 ditch for each wet spot. All these larger ditches or mains from the 
 different wet spots then empty into a still larger ditch which carries 
 the accumulated water from all of them to the natural outlet cheaper 
 than all of the smaller mains could have been extended to the outlet. 
 In this case the largest of all the ditches is called the "main" and the 
 smaller main ditches are called "submains." 
 
 Of course the submains and the main each collect water from the 
 ground on each side of them, just as do the laterals, when they pass 
 thru ground in need of tiling. Thus they perform the duty of a lateral 
 thru the ground in which they are laid as well as performing the duty 
 of mains in carrying to the outlet the water which has been collected 
 by the laterals connected into them. 
 
 Water Tne "water table" is the bottom of the layer of soil from 
 
 table which the ditches collect or draw water. Or it may be 
 
 described as the top of the layer of subsoil from which they 
 
 are unable to draw rwater, and which is then left permanently wet. 
 
 This water table is never level. Out halfway between the lines of 
 tile, it is higher than immedi- 
 ately over them, or close to 
 them. This is because the soil 
 interferes with the horizontal 
 or side ways movement of the 
 water even more than with the 
 downward movement ; the 
 strongest force which is acting 
 on it is the force of gravity 
 which is pulling it downward. 
 This results in the surface of 
 the water being curved rather 
 than perfectly flat. 
 
 LQTERFILS 
 
 Map of a tile system which shows relation of 
 mains sub-mains and laterals. 
 
 27 
 
The degree or the roundness of this curve will depend upon the 
 character of the soil. In a very fine grained clay soil, thru which the 
 water moves slowly and with great difficulty, the surface of the table 
 will be more sloping than in a more open soil thru which the water 
 can move with greater ease. The highest point of the table will be 
 half way between two adjacent ditches. In a tight soil this highest 
 point will be nearer the surface than in a more open soil. 
 
 This is why a system of laterals will drain a mellow soil thoroly 
 when placed further apart than they will in a tight soil. It is why 
 they will "draw further" in an open or mellow soil, such as a sandy 
 loam or a jointed clay, than in a pure clay soil. They will not only 
 draw further, but they will also draw faster, than in the tighter soil. 
 
 When a system of drains in a very tight soil is new, this table 
 has a steep slope back from the tile ditches. For several years this 
 slope becomes more gradual or flat until the highest part of it finally 
 reaches a point much nearer the level of the tile in the ditches than 
 when the system was first put in. This is why, the first one to 
 three years of its life, a system of tile does not show as good effect 
 on the ground furthest from the ditches as it does on that close up 
 to them. But after the system has been in long enough for the high 
 point of the water table to reach its permanent lowest point no dif- 
 ference will be noticed between the crop growing immediately over 
 the tile and that growing out half way between adjacent ditches. 
 
 During a heavy rain storm this water table is raised temporarily. 
 The water which is in the soil lieing immediately over the tile reaches 
 them quicker than does that from a short distance to either side, and 
 still quicker than does that from some distance away. Then after the 
 rain has ceased, this temporarily 
 raised water table again lowers grad- 
 ually until it again reaches the loca- 
 tion of the permanent table. The 
 speed with which it is lowered after 
 a rain will depend upon the tightness Showing action of water table L Lo _ 
 
 Of the SOll, being more Slow in a tight cation at end of rainstorm. 2. Location 
 
 soil than in a mellow, open soil. 
 
 GROUND SORFRCE 
 
 one or two days later, 
 table. 
 
 28 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Location Of Drains 
 
 Wherever possible, mains and submains should be laid along the 
 natural courses thru which the surface water drains. These generally 
 
 five the best grade which is available under the existing field con- 
 itions. At the same time they generally place the mains in the best 
 location from the standpoint of connecting the laterals into them. 
 
 This however does not mean that a main ditch should follow all 
 the meanderings of these natural water courses which wander all over 
 a low, level hollow in reaching their destination. They should reach 
 their destination by the most direct routes possible. Still, they must 
 make whatever bends and turns are necessary to permit the connec- 
 tion of other ditches into them without having to carry these ditches 
 across or thru ridges or wide low spots. 
 
 Remember that a short ditch which runs direct to its destination 
 will have a steeper fall or grade than if it had gone a round-about way 
 to reach the same destination. And it is important to lay all lines of 
 tile so as to give them the most fall possible. This fall or grade of 
 a ditch has a great deal to do in determining the amount of water 
 which will run thru it in an hour or a day. 
 
 In level ground, lay the laterals in long parallel lines with as few 
 submains as possible. This allows the area to be drained with the 
 fewest rods of ditch possible. 
 
 If a hill or hill-side slopes in only one direction, then lay the 
 laterals down this slope. This gives them the maximum amount of 
 grade and so keeps them free of silt. The steeper the grade, the 
 swifter the current in the ditch. The swifter the current in a ditch, 
 the less sediment will be deposited in it. 
 
 If the hill side slopes in two directions, lay the laterals along the 
 longest slope. This longer slope is generally parallel, with the surface 
 water channel at the foot of the slope. The laterals laid in this same 
 direction will intercept the water as it works its way down the face 
 of the hill side and keep it from working its way to the surface. 
 
 In the case of springy spots, locate the laterals so as to intercept 
 the subsurface water before it has had time to rise to the surface, or 
 into the surface layer of soil. This is much better than merely carry- 
 ing it away after it has risen. 
 
 Of course no hide-bound rules can be laid down to govern every 
 man in the location of all the ditches on his farm. Conditions and 
 problems on your farm will probably be more or less different from 
 those on the farm of a neighbor, or a man in another county or state. 
 These individual conditions on your farm must, of necessity, determine 
 the methods to be used. But a knowledge of the general principles 
 to be observed in solving problems of different kinds will be of much 
 value to you in planning your system so as to give the largest pos- 
 sible efficiency. 
 
 29 
 
Laterals on 
 level land 
 
 In broad, level areas, where 
 several lines of laterals are 
 needed to carry off the wa- 
 ter properly, you are given a chance to 
 choose between the two principal methods 
 of arranging laterals, described as follows : 
 The "Herring Bone" system is so named 
 because of its resemblance to the backbone 
 and the ribs of a smoked herring. A main 
 ditch runs thru the middle of the area. The 
 area on both sides of this main is drained 
 by a series of parallel laterals which run 
 practically perpendicular to this main ditch. 
 Notice that a lateral on one side of the 
 main enters at a point midway between the entrance to it of two 
 laterals on the other side. This is so that two streams of water will 
 not enter the same point of the main from opposite sides of it. Two 
 streams entering from opposite sides in this way would clog and inter- 
 fere with the flow of water thru 
 
 the main much more than is done 
 
 where only one stream enters it 
 
 at a given point. 
 
 The Gridiron system. 
 
 The Herring Bone system. 
 
 The "Grid Iron" system is so 
 
 named because of its resemblance 
 
 to the grid iron or the broiling 
 
 iron of the kitchen. It consists of 
 
 a main ditch running across the 
 
 lower end of the wet area with one 
 
 set of parallel laterals running in- 
 
 to it. This is one of the most ef- 
 ficient systems possible for tiling 
 level areas. It requires a smaller 
 total length of ditches to tile a given area than does the Herring Bone 
 system of grouping, for these reasons : 
 
 In ordinary soils these mains will thoroly drain all ground for a 
 distance of about fifty feet on each side. That portion of each lateral 
 
 passing thru this area drained by 
 
 the main is wasted so far as con- 
 
 cerns the drainage of the ground 
 
 thru which it is passing. The only 
 
 duty it performs is to conduct the 
 
 water collected by the upper por- 
 tions of the lateral to the main 
 ditch furnishing the outlet for it. 
 
 ^^^HHHZZI Thus, where the lateral is laid 
 perpendicular to the main into 
 which it empties, the last fifty 
 
 feet of it is wasted so far as con- 
 
 , cerns the work of collecting wa- 
 ter from the soil. The Herring 
 DOUBLE | Mryr/ SYSTEM Bone system thus wastes just 
 
 30 
 
 i 
 
twice as much of its laterals as does the Grid Iron system draining 
 the same area. 
 
 Laterals on Sometimes there will be found wide sloughs where the 
 rolling land sl P e of tne si de hills requires that the laterals should 
 be laid more or less perpendicular to the bottom of 
 the, slough. This condition naturally suggests the use of the Herring 
 Bone method of grouping, rather than the Grid Iron method. But 
 the saving feature of the Grid Iron system may be had by using a 
 combination of the two, known as the "Double Main" system. Paral- 
 lel mains are run thru the slough at the foot of the two slopes. Thus 
 the laterals from each hill side feed into their own main on the Grid 
 Iron system. The complete system has the general appearance of 
 the Herring Bone system, but also has the ditch economy of the 
 Grid Iron. 
 
 These mains should be placed at, or just above, the foot of the 
 slopes. Placed here, they catch all the seepage flowing along the 
 layer of tight subsoil in the hillside before it has had a chance to get 
 out into the more level bottom between the two slopes. If the bot- 
 tom is underlaid by a layer of porous soil charged with water under 
 pressure, these mains at the foot of the slopes should be set deep 
 enough to penetrate into this and remove this water before it has 
 worked its way out under the bottom land. Care should also be 
 taken to make them large enough to carry away this added supply 
 of water. If placing them at the foot of the slopes makes them too 
 far apart to drain all the ground lieing in between them, then the 
 necessary number of laterals should be placed between and parallel 
 to them to drain this area. These laterals will be joined into the 
 mains at the foot of the slough. 
 
 Often in rolling land the bulk of the tile are laid in only wet 
 
 draws and depressions located be- 
 tween adjacent high spots, hills 
 Dr ridges. Here the contour of the 
 ground the slopes and their ar- 
 rangement with reference to each 
 other will govern the location 
 and arrangement of laterals to a 
 considerable extent. Such an ar- 
 rangement is known as the "Nat- 
 ural" system because the arrange- 
 ment is determined by the nature 
 of the ground. In such a system 
 there is not much choice left in 
 planning the location and arrange- 
 The" Natural" system. ments of the laterals and their 
 
 mains. 
 
 Spouty spots The cause of spouty or springy spots in level land 
 in level land a l rea dy nas been explained. A good way in which 
 to correct such a condition, where the damaged 
 area is not too large, is to dig a well down into the center of the 
 damaged area until it has gone some little distance into the porous 
 
 31 
 
layer of soil lieing between the two tight layers. Fill the well with 
 broken tile or rock and coarse gravel to a point just below the bot- 
 tom of the plow furrow. Lay a line of tile from this well along the 
 surface of the upper impervious layer to conduct the water from it to 
 a main or outlet. The water rises more easily thru this weh than 
 thru the crawfish and other holes, 
 
 and is carried away by the tile be- o o o 
 
 fore it has a chance to saturate 
 
 tVi^ rnnrA r>rroiic la-ir^r r>f cur-far-^ Wells and connecting ditch for draining 
 
 the more porous layer ot suriace spouty spots i n i eve i land. 
 soil. 
 
 Sometimes there will be found a considerable area of this sort 
 of low spouty land. If careful investigation or prospecting shows that 
 the condition cannot be cured by a deep laid ditch at the foot of the 
 slope on both sides of it, then a complete system of ditches or laterals 
 should be laid thru it. These should be laid deep enough to penetrate 
 to below the top layer of impervious earth to a depth of a foot or more. 
 These will intercept the subsoil water which is rising under the pres- 
 sure and carry it away before it can rise into the surface soil. 
 
 Spouty spots The cause of these spouty spots on hill sides has been 
 on hill sides explained in previous paragraphs. The way to cure 
 them is to go back up the side of the hill to some 
 point high enough so that the tile laid there will be from one to two 
 feet below the level of the wet spot. Here dig a ditch along the face 
 of the hill instead of down the slope of it. Have it reach to some dist- 
 ance to either side of the spouty spot and then connect it into the main 
 
 or the outlet. Where a series of 
 these spouty spots is found, or 
 there is a continuous line of 
 springy ground along the face of 
 the hill, run a drain the full length 
 of the slope. 
 
 of tile for draining spouty spots Jn ^ way ^ surplus w& _ 
 
 ter from the soil above the spouty 
 
 place is caught and carried away by the tile. It does not have to work 
 its way slowly along thru the subsoil until the tight layer outcrops 
 on the side of the hill. This is far better than to simply run a tile 
 from the outlet or main up into the spouty spot and carry the water 
 away after it has come to the surface. It is much better to prevent the 
 ground from getting wet than it is to cure it after it gets wet. 
 
 32 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Distance Between Laterals 
 
 The distance which laterals should be placed apart is dependent 
 upon the following factors: (1) The tightness of the soil above 
 the tile. (2) The amount of the rainfall ; what percentage of this 
 annual rainfall comes during the growing season, and how much will 
 fall in the worst storms, or within a few days at a time. (3) The 
 levelness of the surface, and so what percentage of the rainfall enters 
 the soil or runs off as surface drainage. (4) In the case of low spots 
 with no surface outlet. Here it depends on the area of the water shed 
 which sheds its water onto this area. Since there is no surface outlet 
 for such an area, all water falling or running onto it must be car- 
 ried away by the tile. (5) Whether or not subsurface water under 
 Pressure must be carried away in addition to the rain water which 
 ills directly on the surface above the tile. (6) The depth to which 
 the tile are laid. 
 
 Tightness of Suppose that your farm is level, so that little or no 
 the soil SUI ~f ace drainage is available. The rain water which 
 falls onto it can escape only by evaporation, or by 
 descending thru the soil. Suppose again that the surface soil is mel- 
 low and loose, but has a tight subsoil beneath it. This tight subsoil 
 holds the water imprisoned in the mellow surface soil above it. The 
 surplus water can descend freely thru the mellow soil until it strikes 
 this tight layer of subsoil beneath it. Also the water can move along 
 the surface of this tight subsoil freely. When the tile are laid in this 
 soil, the water can reach it freely and quickly. The water from a 
 considerable area on each side of a line of tile is able to work its way 
 to the tile in the safe limit of time in which it must be removed from 
 the soil to avoid damage being done. In such a soil the laterals may 
 be placed a considerable distance apart, depending further upon the 
 other conditions which have been mentioned. Cases are some times 
 found under such circumstances where laterals will work well placed 
 as much as 150 or even 200 feet apart. 
 
 But it is different where this layer of soil above the lines of tile 
 is also tight. In the tight clays, the water moves slowly in both the 
 down ward and the horizontal direction. In the tight clay soils it will 
 take as much as three or four times, as long, or even longer, for water 
 to travel a certain distance as it GROUND 
 
 would take to travel the same 
 
 distance thru a mellow sandy 
 loam soil. Under such circum- 
 stances laterals should be only one 
 
 third tO One fourth as far apart Showing the effect which distance be- 
 
 as is the mellow, sandy loam soils. "*" 
 
 33 
 
This means that there are conditions in tight clay soils where the 
 laterals should not be more than 50 to 75 feet apart. 
 
 But not all clay soils and subsoils are this tight. 
 
 We have those grades variously known as joint clays and sandj 
 clays. The water moves thru them more freely and more rapidly than 
 it does thru the tight clays, but not so rapidly as thru the sandy loams. 
 In such open clays the laterals may be as much as 100 feet apart and 
 still the tile will work satisfactorily. 
 
 It is seldom that only one kind of soil or subsoil will be 
 found on one quarter section farm. It more often happens that there 
 are three or four different kinds or conditions found. Each of these 
 presents its own problem, and demands its own distance apart of later- 
 als, in order that they may do their work properly and still the system 
 be installed as economically as possible. 
 
 Amount of I n regions of heavy rainfall there is more surplus water 
 rainfall to be removed from the soil than there is in regions of 
 less rainfall. This demands that the tile be placed 
 closer together, all other things being equal. 
 
 You must also consider what seasons of the year the bulk of this 
 rain falls on your land. In some regions of comparatively light rain- 
 fall the bulk of it is concentrated into a rather short part of the spring 
 season. In such cases the tax on the soil and on the tile is as great dur- 
 ing this crucial time of the year as it is in another region where the 
 total annual fall is greater, but where its fall is distributed more uni- 
 formly thruout the year. 
 
 The possibility of very heavy storms also effects this problem. 
 For instance, here in the upper Mississippi valley we can count on a 
 very wet spell at least once during the spring and once again during 
 the summer. You should lay your tile so as to protect your farm 
 against these wettest and worst times, rather than against the average 
 times and conditions. 
 
 The levelness Where the surface of the soil has very much of a 
 of the surface s lP e > a considerable portion of a heavy rain will 
 run off it without having entered the soil. The 
 percentage or amount of this runoff will also depend on the mellow- 
 ness of the soil and the ease with which the water soaks into it. Where 
 the surface of the field is level, little or none of even the heavy rains 
 runs off. This throws upon the tile, the entire load of removing the 
 surplus. So, the more level the ground, the closer together the tile 
 should be. 
 
 In comparatively level country it is not uncommon to find low 
 spots without a surface outlet. These are shaped much like a broad 
 level dish. On all sides of them will be found higher ground with a 
 certain amount of slope from which more or 1 less surface water drains 
 into this low spot. This surface water must be admitted direct to 
 the tile by means of a surface inlet, or else must work its way thru 
 the soil to the tile. 
 
 Surface inlets give the best results as they act quickly. But they 
 are not satisfactory on a rented farm where a new tenant takes pos- 
 
 34 
 
session every year or two. How to construct these is explained in 
 a later chapter of this book. 
 
 Where this surface water is left to work its way to the tile thru 
 the soil it increases the amount of water which must flow thru the tile 
 laid in this area. This demands that the laterals be placed closer to- 
 gether than otherwise would be necessary. In some cases of this kind 
 it is found necessary to place them only fifty feet apart when one 
 hundred feet would be satisfactory if it were not for the surface water. 
 
 Cases are encountered where the principal amount of water 
 reaching the tile comes from the subsoil under pressure instead of from 
 the surface. Sometimes the surface soil conditions alone are such that 
 the laterals can be placed 100 feet apart. And yet the amount of 
 subsurface water coming up under pressure is so great that they must 
 be placed as close together as 50 feet in order to handle all the water 
 coming from these two sources. 
 
 The depth It is a combination of their distance apart and the 
 of the tile depth of the tile which determines the depth of the 
 permanent water table at its highest point half way 
 between two adjacent lines of tile. When two adjacent laterals 
 are 4 feet deep and 100 feet apart, the highest point of 
 the water table will be nearer the surface than when they are 4 
 feet deep and only 50 feet apart. General experience of drainage engin- 
 eers seems to indicate that where two adjacent laterals are 100 feet 
 apart and 4 feet deep the highest point of the water table will be prac- 
 tically the same as where the tile are three and a half feet deep and 
 fifty feet apart. 
 
 It does no good to go below hard pan in an effort to lower the 
 water table. The hard pan itself becomes the table, so iMs a waste 
 of labor to go deeper for that purpose. When a hard pan is encount- 
 ered near the surface, the depth of the water table will have to be 
 regulated by distance apart more than by depth of the ditches, 
 
 35 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How Deep 
 To Lay Tile 
 
 Depth o f For our ordinary crops this water table should be at 
 water table ^ east three feet below the surface of the ground at a 
 point midway between any two adjacent lines of tile. 
 A low water table can be secured much cheaper by laying the laterals 
 deep than by laying them close together. Take the case of 4 feet deep 
 and 100 feet apart as compared to three and a half feet deep and 50 
 feet apart, based on the ruling prices of 1917 for digging and for five 
 inch tile. At these prices, five inch tile laid 4 feet deep cost $1.27 a rod ; 
 tile laid three and a half feet deep cost $1.15 a' rod. So that where the 
 ditches are placed three and a half feet deep and fifty feet apart, the 
 cost of getting a low water table is $2.30 as compared with $1.27 for the 
 same area with the tile laid four feet deep and one hundred feet apart. 
 Where they are three and one half feet deep and seventy five feet apart 
 the cost is $1.75 as compared to the $1.27 for four feet deep and one 
 hundred feet apart. 
 
 Water To meet the demands of our crops, especially of corn, there 
 supply no ^ on ^y mus t be a large amount of capillary water in each 
 cubic foot of the soil, but there must also be many cubic 
 feet of soil so charged with water for the plant roots to penetrate in 
 their search for food and water. The supply of this capillary water is 
 restored each time it rains. A deep layer of soil above the water table 
 will retain more of the rain fall in the form of capillary water than will 
 a shallow layer resulting from a high water table. And the tile must 
 be deep in order to give this deep storage basin for capillary water. 
 
 During a dry season there will be more moisture stored in the 
 deep soil by the air percolating thru it than in a shallower soil. As 
 the air works its way downward thru the soil it reaches a cooler tem- 
 perature every few inches. Finally it reaches a temperature where it 
 cannot hold its moisture, but must give some of it up and deposit it 
 in the form of capillary water on the particles of soil surrounding it. 
 
 As it goes still deeper, it gets still cooler and deposits still more 
 of its moisture. In a very shallow soil it may not reach a temper- 
 ature low enough to make it give up any of its moisture. Thus it is 
 seen that where the water table is deep more water is extracted from 
 the soil air than where it is nearer the surface. Deep laid tile will 
 thus protect a crop against drought better than will shallow laid tile. 
 
 Heat Where the 
 supply l w ' tnere 
 
 water table is 
 s a great deal 
 more heat stored up than 
 where the water table is nearer the sur- 
 face. Crops growing above a deep wa- 
 
 36 
 
 How shallow tile affect the growth of 
 corn. 
 
ter table actually have a longer effective growing season than have 
 those growing above a shallow water table in the same location. 
 
 In Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, there was found a few years ago, 
 a field in which tile had been laid some ten to fifteen years before, 
 but had been laid to a depth of only two, to two and a half feet. This 
 year in question was a cold, wet one. A careful examination was 
 made to determine their effect on the crop. Where the tile were only 
 two feet deep they had no appreciable beneficial effect on the crop, even 
 where the corn hills were immediately over the tile. Where they were 
 two and a half feet deep the corn hills immediately over the tile were 
 a little higher than those in the rest of the field. But those a few feet 
 away showed no benefit from the tile. With the exception of these 
 comparatively few hills, the entire field was a very poor crop of corn ; 
 it was small, yellow, sickly and scrawny looking. 
 
 Not far away was another field of corn on land where the tile 
 had been laid three and a half to four feet deep, but had not been 
 laid as many years as had this more shallow system. Here the corn 
 crop was in far better shape than in the other field. In fact it was 
 as good as there was to be found anywhere in the county that year. 
 The deeper tiled field was warmer than was the shallow tiled field 
 as there was a deeper layer of soil above the water table in which 
 the heat from the sun was stored. 
 
 Frost With many men the chief argument for putting tile deeper 
 level tnan three feet, which has any force, is to get them down be- 
 low frost level. Four feet will not do this in the latitude of 
 nothern Iowa, or for some considerable distance south of here. In 
 severe winters, with little snow on the ground, frost has been known 
 to go as deep asi six feet here. So protection from frost is not a valid 
 argument for putting the tile down to four feet but getting a deep 
 water table surely is, and should be enough argument to convince any 
 man. 
 
 You need not be worried about your tile in the ground being 
 damaged by freezing, if the tile is well made. Tile which is made of 
 properly mixed shale, and which has been burned hard so it will not 
 absorb a great deal of water into its walls, will not be damaged by 
 freezing when in its ditch even tho it may be damaged some by freez- 
 ing when wet and exposed to the air either by lying on top of the 
 ground or being exposed at an outlet of a ditch. Inspection of tile laid 
 twenty years ago, shows that if you will use a well mixed, hard burned 
 shale tile of a brownish tint or color you need not ever worry about 
 their being damaged by frost when it reaches them in an extremely 
 cold winter. 
 
 Muck or Muck or peat soils shrink after they are thoroly tiled out. 
 peat Soils This shrinkage is a rather slow process, it requiring two 
 to three years to get a muck or peat soil well settled. The 
 amount of this shrinkage depends upon the depth of the layer of 
 muck, and upon the percentage of partially decomposed vegetable 
 matter contained in it. 
 
 37 
 
Tile should be laid in this sort of soil deep enough so that after 
 this shrinkage has been completed they will still be as deep as those 
 laid in other soil. A good example of how to handle this sort of soil 
 is found in the method used by one of the largest land owners in 
 northern Iowa, a man who has handled successfully a number of 
 farms in which peaty soils predominate. 
 
 This man lays his tile in this sort of soil four and a half to five 
 feet deep. The drains are laid about 200 feet apart, as at this distance 
 they draw well in unsettled muck or peat soils. He pastures this 
 land for two or three years. During this time this soil is not very 
 good for growing crops, but will produce very fair pasture. The 
 grazing of the cattle helps to pack the soil and so hastens its shrinkage 
 and settling. 
 
 By the time the muck is well settled, the tile are not drawing 
 well. So now he puts laterals in between the first ones so they 
 are now only 100 feet apart. He lays these new ditches to the same 
 depth the old laterals now are ; this is about four feet. In this way 
 he saves this last six inches to one foot of digging on this last half 
 of the laterals. The land is now ready for cropping, and the tile are 
 all laid to a good depth. Had the first tile been laid only four feet 
 deep, none of the ditches would be more than three to three and a half 
 below the surface of the field and the land would not be well drained 
 with the ditches this depth and this distance apart. 
 
 Water under Where the tight layer of subsoil is underlaid by a 
 Dressure l aver f s il containing water under pressure, tile laid 
 in the top layer of porous soil often will not do a good 
 job of draining the land. In such cases a series of deep laid laterals 
 is about the only solution of the problem. A good illustration of this 
 is found in the case of a tract of land formerly owned by the late Mr. 
 Denison, the founder of the Mason City Brick & Tile Company. 
 
 This tract of land laid in what is called an old pre-glacial stream 
 bed. It was a broad, low, level area of peaty or muck soil with very 
 inferior surface drainage. Furthermore, it was what is commonly 
 known as craw fish land. Underneath the layer of peaty soil was a 
 layer of very tight clay soil or hard pan. This layer of hard pan was 
 underlaid in turn by a layer of water bearing soil. This water was 
 under pressure resulting from the weight of the water which seeped 
 into it on the slopes of the higher ground where it was not covered by 
 this layer of hard pan which covered it underneath the peat. The 
 craw fish bored their holes down thru this layer of hard pan in search 
 of the permanent supply of water. These craw fish holes furnished 
 sufficient outlet to permit the water to rise from the water bearing 
 layer beneath in such quantity as to keep this place a veritable swamp 
 of peat or muck. 
 
 Some common every day, 
 "spade and shovel" tilers had put 
 a system of tiles into this tract. 
 They thought it was not necessary 
 and would be too much work and 
 too costly, to go into or thru this 
 *"*"* "*" * layer of hard pan. So they simply 
 38 
 
 WflTEB BEflRING GRAVEL 
 
laid the tile down to it, thinking the water all came from the rain which 
 fell on the area being drained. But the condition was not relieved by 
 this system of ditches. 
 
 Mr. Denison secured the services of a capable and experienced 
 drainage engineer when he purchased the tract, and gave him instruc- 
 tions to do a thoro job of tiling it. A careful inspection of the tract, 
 noticing the craw fish holes and digging inspection holes down thru 
 the hard pan, convinced the engineer of the presence of water under 
 pressure. He found that the hard pan was underlaid by a layer of 
 fine sand from which water rose rather slowly into the holes he dug 
 into it. 
 
 He decided that a series of wells sunk into this layer and connect- 
 ed above the hard pan by the lines of tile already laid would not solve 
 the problem because the sand beneath was so fine the water would not 
 move sideways readily enough, but would continue to rise thru the 
 craw fish holes and be soaked up by the sponge-like peaty soil above. 
 So all the tile were laid deep enough to carry them down thru the hard 
 pan and some little distance into the water bearing layer beneath it. 
 In other words, the tile were so laid that they drained this lower water 
 bearing layer just as an ordinary system of laterals drains the soil in 
 which they are laid. 
 
 This solved the problem completely. Ever since that time this 
 tract has been thoroly drained. There has been no more trouble from 
 surplus water. The land can be worked at any time of the year, even 
 when higher but less well drained land cannot be worked at all. It 
 is true that it was necessary to put the tile six to seven feet deep. But 
 by doing so a worthless piece of bog land was made into as fine land 
 as can be found anywhere. And yet, placing the tile to an ordinary 
 depth did not do this. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 What Sizes 
 Of Tile To Use 
 
 The tile used for both laterals and main ditches should be large 
 enough to carry away the water as fast as it is delivered to the ditches. 
 The great bulk of the soil which needs tiling is some form of clay or 
 clay loam, or a mixture of the two. There is no danger of removing 
 the water from these soils too rapidly. There is much danger of not 
 removing it rapidly enough. So the ideal to work toward, in planning 
 a system of ditches, is one which will carry away the water just as 
 fast as it gets to the laterals. 
 
 How diameter The amount of water which will flow thru a given 
 effects capacity ditch within a given time depends, among other 
 things, upon the cross sectional area of the tile. The 
 area of the cross section varies as the square of the diameter the pro- 
 duct obtained by multiplying the diameter by itself. Let us illustrate 
 this fact thus: The square of 4 is 16; the square of 5 is 25. So that 
 a five inch tile has a capacity 1-9/16 times as great as has a four inch 
 tile. 
 
 The actual working capacity of a line of tile is not as great as the 
 capacity of a single tile, or an iron pipe, of the same diameter. This 
 reduction in capacity is caused by irregularities in joining the ends 
 
 ^ two a ^J acent til e > by c ro ks or twists 
 i n tne ditch, by irregularities in the grade 
 or slope that is, by high spots or low spots 
 in the bottom of the ditch. These irregu- 
 larities tend to "stricture" the ditch, or to 
 reduce its active cross sectional area. An 
 irregularity will have a more serious ef- 
 
 fect n a Sma11 ti . le than n a J ar g er one - 
 
 A half inch "jog" in making a joint will de- 
 stroy a larger percentage of the capacity of a four inch tile than of a 
 five inch. 
 
 How grades The amount of water discharged from a tile ditch 
 effect capacity w ^ depend directly upon the speed or velocity with 
 which a stream flows. A ten inch tile flowing full, 
 with a velocity of two miles an hour, will discharge just twice as much 
 water as will another ten inch tile, running full, at a speed of only one 
 mile an hour. The one with a speed of two miles an hour will furnish 
 a satisfactory outlet for just twice as many acres of wet land as will 
 the one with a speed of only one mile an hour. 
 
 In any case the grade of a ditch should be steep enough so that 
 the current of water flowing thru the tile will be strong enough to 
 carry with it all the silt and sediment which gets into the ditch, 
 rather than depositing it. The capacity of running water to carry 
 solid matter varies directly as the sixth power of the velocity of the 
 current. This means that a stream with a velocity of two miles an 
 
 40 
 
hour will carry pieces of earth weighing sixty &MILJS PER HOUR 
 
 four times as much (2x2x2x2x2x2=64) as 
 those which will be carried by a stream with 
 a velocity of only one mile an hour. 
 
 Now notice how that rule works : Sup- 
 pose you were laying a ditch with such a 
 grade that it gives a stream velocity of two 
 miles an hour. Then you came to a place 
 
 where you had to dig deep for a ways to Diagram to show how doubling 
 maintain that grade, or else go to a grade the rate of flow of water affects 
 which would give a velocity of only one '" capacity to carry silt ' 
 mile an hour, and you chose the latter solution. When the water 
 flowing thru the tile came to that more gradual grade, its velocity 
 would be changed from two miles an hour to one mile an hour, and 
 its ability to carry sediment would be reduced to only one sixty-fourth 
 of what it was before; it would have to drop onto the bottom of the 
 ditch all particles of soil which weighed any more than one sixty- 
 fourth as much as did the largest pieces which it was able to carry be- 
 fore at the higher grade. In a short time this would badly choke the 
 ditch at this point. 
 
 A low spot, or a high spot, in the bottom of a ditch acts the same 
 as a change of grade and slows down the velocity of the stream of wa- 
 ter flowing thru that portion of the tile except when the tile is run- 
 ning full and with the water under pressure from having the soil above 
 it saturated with water. So that when the stream comes to one of 
 these high spots, or low spots, it slows down and deposits the larger 
 particles of soil which it may be carrying. 
 
 Thus you will see the importance of laying all ditches with as 
 good grade as possible, and of keeping this grade as constant or uni- 
 form as you can. Tile laid to a good uniform steep grade will keep 
 free of silt and always have maximum efficiency. Tile laid with a 
 slight fall, or with cracks and humps in it, will be apt to fill up in 
 spots and reduce the carrying capacity and the draining efficiency 
 of all that portion of the ditch lying above this spot. 
 
 Whenever possible, lateral ditches should have a fall of at least 
 .3 foot in the hundred, or practically the same as three and five eighths 
 inches to the hundred feet. Of course there are often cases in a very 
 level country where this much fall cannot be had without laying the 
 lower ends of the mains and laterals very deep. Where the depth 
 necessary to give this fall is so great as to make the cost prohibitive- 
 ly high, you will have to lay the laterals with less grade. They will 
 work at less grade, but they will not work as fast and they will not 
 drain so wide an area when the ground is saturated with water, un- 
 less you correspondingly increase their size. 
 
 Main ditches should have all the grade that is available so as to 
 reduce as much as is possible the size of the tile necessary to carry 
 away the water brought to the main by the laterals feeding into it. 
 Large ditches soon run into a lot of money. So it pays to keep them 
 as small as you can and still have them do their work properly. But 
 when necessary, mains can be run perfectly level and still work ; but of 
 course their size will have to be increased so as to give the required 
 
 41 
 
capacity. In a wet spell, when the ground is saturated with water, and 
 when the laterals and the submains are running full, the water in this 
 main will be under pressure from this upper water and so will have 
 a reasonably satisfactory velocity. Its velocity will be greatest when 
 it is needed most. 
 
 Best size It is a mistake to use tile smaller than five inches in 
 for laterals diameter for laterals. Some men may say that it is 
 just throwing good money away to put in anything 
 larger than three inch tile for laterals. On the contrary, it is throw- 
 ing away good money to use anything smaller than five inch tile for 
 laterals. 
 
 And here are some mighty good reasons for that statement : 
 
 The cost of digging the ditch for the three inch tile is just the 
 same as the ditch for five inch tile. In fact all items of labor are the 
 same, except the cost of delivering the tile from the town to the ditch 
 The labor cost of a job of tiling is more than the cost of the tile. Most 
 manufacturers charge the same for threes and fours as they charge for 
 fives. Those who do sell cheaper make only a slight reduction for 
 the threes and fours nothing to compare to the difference in water 
 carrying capacity of the different sizes. So but very little, if anything 
 at all, is gained in this matter of cost by using the smaller sizes. 
 
 The water carrying capacity of the five inch tile is more than one 
 and a half times as great as that of a four inch tile, it is more than 
 two and two thirds times that of a three inch tile. A half inch 
 lap in a joint, or a half inch variation from accurate grade, will not 
 make as great a proportional reduction in the capacity* of the five inch 
 tile as it will in that of the four or a three inch one. So that the five 
 inch tile will always work much nearer its maximum possible efficiency 
 than will the smaller sizes of tile. 
 
 Five inch tile will remove the accumulated water faster than will 
 the smaller sizes, and so will do a better job and will drain a wider 
 area in a given time. After a system has been in for some time, the 
 soil becomes more porous and open so that the soil water reaches it 
 more rapidly. In a very wet season, when there is a great deal of rain- 
 fall within a few days, the water will reach the tile more rapidly than 
 in a less open s-: ; l. In a very tight soil the smaller sizes of tile may 
 handle all the v/nter which reaches them for the first two or three 
 seasons. But in time they will be drawing from such a wide area they 
 are not able to handle the water as rapidly as it reaches them. You 
 should lay your laterals so as to care for the needs of the future as 
 well as those of the present. This means you should use five inch tile 
 for the laterals. 
 
 Best sizes The proper size of tile to use for main and submain 
 for mains ditches will depend on the following factors: (1) The 
 area drained. (2) The levelness of that area. (3) The 
 area of higher ground from which surface water runs off onto this 
 area, and what percentage of the rainfall runs off as surface water. 
 (4) The texture of the soil which is being drained. (5) To what 
 extent surface intakes are to be used to admit surface water direct 
 
 42 
 
to the tile. (6) The grade on which mains and submains are to be 
 laid. (7) What amount of rainfall is to be drained away in twenty- 
 four hours. 
 
 These factors are all so intricately related that you should con- 
 sult an experienced and competent drainage engineer to help you 
 decide what sizes of tile to use for these mains and submains, as 
 well as their location and the location of the laterals. Only a man 
 who is thoroly informed on the scientific principles involved in farm 
 drainage is capable of deciding these problems in such a way as to 
 give you a thoroly efficient system of tile. 
 
 When tile are laid four feet deep, and have been in long enough 
 for the soil to be well opened up, the mains need to remove rain- 
 fall only at the rate of one quarter inch of rainfall per twenty-four 
 hours. Under such soil conditions any water standing on top of the 
 ground, as a result of its falling faster than it can be soaked up or 
 run off, will soak into the ground within a few hours so that the 
 surface will be in condition to be plowed or cultivated within six 
 to twenty-four hours after a heavy rain. One inch of rainfall will 
 saturate about four to six inches of normally moist soil which is 
 good and porous. So it would require eight to twelve inches of 
 rainfall, falling just as fast as the ground will soak it up, to saturate 
 the four feet of ground lying above the laterals. This is a condi- 
 tion which never occurs in this country. So this rate of removing 
 the surplus water from the soil is fast enough to meet all the con- 
 ditions which are imposed on our soils, and still prevent damage to 
 crops. 
 
 The various sizes of tile shown in the accompanying table will 
 carry away the water delivered to them from the soil by the laterals 
 at this rate for the number of acres shown, providing the main of 
 this size is not over 1,000 feet long. If all the surface water is to 
 be removed also, instead of letting it run over the land, the title 
 will have to be considerably larger. 
 
 TABLE SHOWING AREAS DRAINED BY T|LE MAINS LAID UPON 
 THE GRADES INDICATED 
 
 Computed by formula recommended by C. G. Elliott, formerly Chief Drainage 
 Investigations, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture 
 
 Grade per 100 feet in Decimals of a foot with approximate equivalents In Inches. 
 
 Diameter of 
 Tile In Inches 
 
 5 
 
 0.04 
 iin. 
 
 0.05 
 fin. 
 
 0.08 
 lin. 
 
 0.10 
 lAin. 
 
 0.12 
 liin. 
 
 0.16 
 2 in. 
 
 020 
 2fin. 
 
 0.25 
 3 in. 
 
 0.30| 
 3f in. 
 
 0.40 
 4f in. 
 
 0.50 
 6 in. 
 
 0.75 
 9 in. 
 
 Acres of Land Drained 
 
 17.3 
 27.3 
 39.9 
 55.7 
 74.7 
 96.9 
 (152.2 
 
 17.7 
 28.0 
 41.1 
 57.3 
 76.5 
 99.5 
 156.1 
 
 19.1 
 29.9 
 44.1 
 61.4 
 82.2 
 106.7 
 167.7 
 
 19.8 
 31.2 
 45.9 
 64.0 
 85.6 
 111.2 
 174.8 
 
 20.6 
 32.5 
 47.7 
 66.5 
 89.1 
 115.6 
 181.7 
 
 22.1 
 34.8 
 51.1 
 71.2 
 95.3 
 123.9 
 194.6 
 
 23.5 
 37.0 
 54.3 
 75.6 
 101.4 
 131.6 
 206.8 
 
 25.1 
 39.6 
 58.0 
 80.9 
 108.4 
 140.6 
 221.1 
 
 26.7 
 42.0 
 61.6 
 85.8 
 114.9 
 149.3 
 234.5 
 
 29.5 
 46.4 
 68.2 
 95.0 
 127.0 
 165.2 
 259.2 
 
 32.0 
 50.5 
 74.0 
 103.3 
 138.1 
 179.2 
 281.8 
 
 37.7 
 59.4 
 87.1 
 121.4 
 162.6 
 211.1 
 331.8 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 12 
 
 43 
 
Let us see now, how this table works, by using some examples 
 as follows : 
 
 Suppose that you have a farm of 160 acres, all of which is so 
 level that it requires tile laid every hundred feet. Suppose also that 
 this farm lies high enough so that surface water does not drain 
 down onto it from any land higher up. Suppose also that your 
 main runs thru such a level section that there is a natural fall of 
 only \ l /2 inch to the hundred feet. By consulting this table we find 
 that a ten inch main laid at this grade will drain only 115.6 acres 
 at the rate of one fourth inch rainfall in twenty-four hours; while a 
 twelve inch tile will drain 181.7 acres under the same conditions. 
 Manufacturers do not build eleven inch tile, so you should use the 
 twelve inch. The slight added expense involved will be far more 
 than compensated for by the greater efficiency of your system than if 
 you had used only the ten inch main. 
 
 Suppose a second time that your farm of 160 acres had only 
 forty acres of wet ground with the same fall for an outlet. Suppose 
 that this forty acres had this same slight fall to its surface, and that 
 the other 120 acres surrounded it and did not need drainage because 
 a goodly percentage of the rainfall ran off as surface water onto this 
 wet forty. In figuring what size main to use, you would have 
 to count in a portion of this higher land. You would have to use 
 a main large enough for anywhere from eighty to 120 acres, de- 
 pending on the percentage of the rainfall on the high land which 
 reached the low land as surface runoff. You see, with this very 
 gradual slope to your low land, not all the water which reached it 
 as surface run off from the higher land would leave it as surface 
 run off. Some of it would soak into the soil of this lowland and 
 reach its tile as the only chance of escape. This would make the 
 demands placed on the main greater than that originating solely from 
 the rain which fell onto the low land. 
 
 Suppose a third time, that this wet forty acres was a pond, 
 without outlet. All the rain which falls onto it would have to escape 
 thru the tile. All the run off from the higher land would also have 
 to escape thru these tile. If these slopes of the higher land were 
 very steep, much more of the rainfall would reach the tile from the 
 entire 160 acres than would if the land were all level, because only 
 a small portion of it would be taken up by the high land as capillary 
 water. This would make the demands on the tile much greater than 
 if all the land were level and needed tiling. In extreme cases of 
 this nature you might have to use a tile large enough to care for 
 as much as 240 or even 300 acres of normally level land such as is 
 contemplated by this table. It matters not whether this accumulation 
 of surface water soaks its way thru the soil into the tile, or is ad- 
 mitted direct by means of surface intakes, the tile will have to be 
 this size to remove it fast enough to prevent the crops growing on 
 this low land from being damaged by water standing in or on the 
 surface of the soil. 
 
 44 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Some Very 
 Important Points 
 
 When tiling When a job of tiling is done right, there is no in- 
 do a good job vestment which can be made on any farm which 
 will pay larger returns. If not done right, the in- 
 vestment will not repay as large returns as it should. The difference 
 between a good job of tiling and a poor one is so great that you can- 
 not afford to take chances that it will not be done right. 
 
 To insure that it is done right, you should employ an experienced 
 and capable drainage engineer. The fee which must be paid for his 
 services is so small when you consider the importance to you of hav- 
 ing the job done right that you should not haggle for a moment over 
 the size of that fee. The important thing to you is, not the amount 
 he is going to charge you, but whether or not he knows his business 
 and whether or not he attends to it. 
 
 Have him assist you in deciding where to locate the ditches. Have 
 him make a survey of the entire water shed which drains surface water 
 onto the land to be tiled. Have him make a survey of each ditch, 
 establishing grades and sizes of tile for each. Have him make a map 
 of the entire system, including the length of ditch for each size of tile 
 and a profile showing the grades or slopes for each ditch. Have this 
 map "tied into" some permanent and official monument such as a 
 section or township corner. Keep that map carefully for future re- 
 ference in case it ever becomes necessary to examine any part of any 
 ditch, or you ever want to add to the system of ditches. Have your 
 engineer inspect all tile with an instrument at frequent intervals along 
 the ditch before they are covered more than mere blinding. 
 
 Never let a ditcher lay a single rod of tile "by water grade" or by 
 guess. No tile ditch ever laid, "sucks like a chimney." A tile ditch 
 will not work like a siphon, no matter how hard some "Round Head" 
 may argue that it will. Make him do his work according to the in- 
 structions of your engineer. Keep close watch of him to see that he 
 does it that way. Do not trust any digger. While a digger may be 
 perfectly honest, yet it is your land instead of his in which he is doing 
 the work. 
 
 Put in a system of tile which will make your fields dry and pro- 
 ductive under the worst weather conditions which exist in your sec- 
 tion of the country. Do not tile to 
 meet average conditions. It is the 
 worst years, not the average ones, 
 that wet fields make the biggest 
 
 Vi/-1^c in -irrmr Honlr arrnnnt Tf vnn The e ff ect when the di 99 er does not fol- 
 
 nOieS in yO1 .I yo low the eng i neer > s grades properly. The 
 
 tile to meet the worst conditions in tile below the dotted, line fin up with silt 
 
 f ,. and reduce the draining abihty or capacity 
 
 your section ot the country, your O f ail the ditch above it. 
 
 45 
 
system of tile will pay for itself much quicker than if you had tiled 
 to meet only average conditions. And it will pay you an additional 
 profit much quicker, and continue to pay these larger profits a longer 
 time. 
 
 You take out life and fire insurance to meet the worst crisis pos- 
 sible, not to meet the average conditions. The same principle should 
 be followed in tiling your farm. You should tile to meet worst con- 
 ditions, not average ones. 
 
 Plan your Sometimes a man does not have enough money 
 
 system carefully available to cover the cost of a complete system 
 
 of tiling. At the least, the average man is unable 
 
 to tell how much a good job is going to cost him. Naturally, he wants 
 to have a fairly close estimate on this before he makes any definite 
 move. In such a case, get your drainage engineer to come out and 
 go over the proposition with you. Tell him that you want to know 
 approximately how much it is going to cost to put in every rod of tile 
 which your farm needs. It will not take him very long to make you 
 a very close estimate. 
 
 If you have the money, do the entire job. If you do not have 
 quite enough, your banker will be more than glad to loan it to you. 
 Bankers are so thoroly convinced of the value of tiling wet land that 
 some of them are even lending money for that purpose with only 
 a second mortgage, or even simply a personal note, as security. Re- 
 member that the increased yields the first year will far more than pay 
 interest on the first cost. There are many instances in every county 
 where this first year's increased production has repaid the entire cost 
 of tiling. 
 
 If you do not have enough money, and do not want to borrow, 
 there arises the question of which of two things to do. Shall you 
 spread your available cash over* the entire farm, doing only as good a 
 job as you can with the money? Or shall you use it all in doing a 
 thoro job over as many acres as the money will cover? 
 
 Here is the thing to do in a case like that. Pick out the very 
 wettest part of the farm, the part which is now producing you the 
 least. Spend your available money in tiling that part of it thoroly. 
 Do not skimp any part of it in an attempt to make your money cover 
 a large acreage. That is a waste of money. Forty acres of wet land 
 thoroly tiled will give you a larger return on its cost than you would 
 get if you had spent the same amount of money in doing only a fairly 
 good job on sixty or eighty acres of the same kind of land. Then the 
 next year, take the extra money you have earned from this tract you 
 have tiled this year and spend it tiling just as much land as it will 
 do a good job on. Continue each year, using the extra money you 
 earn from the tiled land, with which to do a thoro job on more land. 
 In a very short time you will have the entire place tiled. The original 
 outlay for tiling will be only what you spent for the first job. 
 
 Of course, the larger the area on which you can do a good job 
 the first year, the quicker you will get it all tiled and the quicker 
 the original cost will be paid back to you in the form of increased 
 profits from the farm. If you have enough money with which to tile 
 an eighty out of a quarter section the first year, you will make more 
 
 46 
 
money in the next five or ten years if you will start out with the 
 eighty than you would if you had started out with only forty acres, 
 planning to make a forty pay for tiling the rest of the farm. 
 
 Connecting O ne ditch should not enter another perpendicularly. 
 ditches Connections should always be made at an angle of 
 
 about forty-five degrees, or one half of the perpendicu- 
 lar. The stream of water flowing into a main from a lateral naturally 
 tends to stop or interfere with the stream flowing thru the main. If 
 the lateral enters perpendicularly, it will interfere with the flow of the 
 water thru the main a great deal more than it would if it had entered 
 at an angle of forty-five degrees. This interference is just the same 
 as reducing the size of the main just that much. A main with its later- 
 als and submains entering it perpendicu- 
 larly will not drain properly as many 
 acres as it would if they had entered 
 at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
 
 If your laterals are laid out on the 
 grid iron principle, and are perpendicu- 
 lar to the main, the last fifteen to twenty 
 
 <O 
 
 The proper way to connect one five feet of the laterals should be bent 
 ditch to another. into 3. curve so that they finally enter 
 
 the main on a slant. This bend should not be made in the form of an 
 abrupt angle, but should be made in the form of a part of a circle. 
 
 The lateral ditch should be connected into the middle of the main 
 tile. It should not be made into the bottom of the main, or into the 
 top of it. 
 
 The main ditch should be deeper than the laterals. Enough deeper 
 so that the curved portion of the lateral will have more fall than the 
 rest of it. This increased fall will tend to increase the velocity of the 
 stream from the lateral to compensate for the tendency of this curve 
 to slow it down, or may even increase it slightly. This will throw 
 the stream from the lateral into the main ditch with sufficient force 
 to prevent the deposit of silt where the lateral enters the main. 
 
 Use regular, manufactured union tiles. These can be had in al- 
 most any combination of sizes wanted, and are made to give the con- 
 nection at proper angle. The connection is miule in the process of 
 manufacturing the tile, so that it has been burned after the union is 
 made. This will give you a tight joint which will prevent dirt from en- 
 tering the tile as will happen with the aver- 
 age home made union. li you make a union 
 in the field, see that it is made good and tight. 
 It can be covered with pieces of broken tile 
 so as to protect it fairly well from the en- 
 trance of dirt. But it would be much better 
 to seal the joint with concrete so as to make 
 sure there is no hole thru which dirt or silt 
 can enter the tile. 
 
 Making Never change the direction of a 
 a turn ditch with a sharp or direct angle. 
 Always make the turn in the shape 
 
 sealed Joint of a part of a circle. This circle should have 
 47 
 
a radius of at least fifty feet, one 
 hundred is better. A sharp turn or 
 angle will seriously reduce the 
 amount of water which will flow 
 thru the drain in a given time. This 
 means, furthermore, that it will cor- 
 respondingly reduce the number of 
 acres which will be drained properly 
 by the ditch. 
 
 If the ends of the tile on the out- 
 side of the turn are more than one 
 eighth to one quarter of an inch 
 apart, this opening should be covered 
 by placing over it a piece of tile the 
 same diameter. This will help keep 
 dirt from getting in thru this too 
 large opening at the joint. 
 
 Making 
 a joint 
 
 The proper way to make a turn. 
 
 The ends of the tile should 
 meet each other squarely. 
 If they are a little irregu- 
 lar, so they do not meet squarely 
 thru the full circle, then they should 
 be closest at the top so as to keep out 
 dirt. Most of the dirt which gets into the tile comes in thru the top 
 or the sides of the joint ; very little, if any at all, comes in thru the 
 bottom portion of the joint, except quicksand. 
 
 All the water which gets into a line of tile, enters it thru the 
 joints between the tiles. It does not seep thru the walls of the in- 
 dividual tiles. Some men will argue that you should use a soft 
 tile so that the water can get into the ditch. This is all bosh. All 
 the water which would work its way thru the walls of even a very 
 soft burned tile in a year will not be sufficient to carry off the sur- 
 plus from even one fair sized rain. If you do not believe it, seal up 
 the end of a tile water tight; stand it on end and fill it with water, 
 cover the top and let it stand until all the water has soaked out of 
 the tile. If you had to go without eating while it was soaking its 
 way thru the tile, you would starve to death. 
 
 If you will fit the ends of the tile up to each other as close as 
 possible* the space between the ends of the tile will be large enough 
 to let the water into the ditch as fast as it works its way thru the 
 soil. So snuggle them up as close as you can, so as to 
 keep out the dirt. 
 
 Shaping the The bottom of a ditch should be smooth, 
 bottom anc ^ with a uniform grade. It should be 
 
 rounded to the same size or degree ^of 
 curve as is the tile to be laid in it. This gives the tile 
 a wide bearing surface on its bottom. This wide bear- 
 ing surface on the bottom of the tile is especially im- 
 portant for large tiles which are laid to any consider- 
 able depth. The weight of the dirt which is piled on 
 top of these large tiles in filling the ditches throws a 
 48 
 
 Make the bot- 
 tom of the ditch 
 fit the curve of 
 the tile. 
 
very considerable load onto them. If the GR^HWG 
 
 tile rests on a flat ditch bottom, it will be GT?OUKD 
 
 crushed by a considerably less load of this 
 
 kind than if it is laid on a bottom which has 
 
 a curve of the same radius so the tile will 
 
 fit into the bottom of the ditch as the axle 
 
 of a wagon fits into the wheel hub. 
 
 Surface These inlets are merely branch- 
 intakes es w hich connect the tile with 
 some spot on the surface where 
 
 water collects and stands, without running A surface intake. 
 
 away as surface flow. They admit this 
 
 surface water direct into the tile instead of forcing it to work 
 its way thru the soil to reach the tile. Some people place them in 
 small ponds, or "impounded areas," in the fields. Others place them 
 only in roadside ditches where for some reason or other all the sur- 
 face water does not run off with the surface drainage. 
 
 These inlets should be made of sewer pipe with cemented joints, 
 after the manner shown in the drawing. They should be covered with 
 a metal grating to keep out weeds and trash. The best kind is the 
 conical or "bee-hive" shaped grating. A post should be set firmly in 
 the ground beside the inlet to prevent machinery from being driven 
 over it and damaging it. 
 
 Simply filling a short stretch of the ditch up to the plow line 
 with broken tile, crushed stone or gravel, does not make a good inlet. 
 It never works satisfactorily. It either fills up or washes out. Use 
 a real inlet, or none at all. 
 
 Silt Where tile are laid in a sandy subsoil, in quick sand or a fine 
 basins s i^7 l am > considerable quantities of sand and silt will get into 
 the tile. Silt basins should be placed at the lower ends of such 
 stretches of the ditch to keep this silt from going on into the lower 
 stretches of the ditch or the mains which lie below. Wherever the 
 grade of a main ditch is lowered materially so that the velocity of the 
 tile water is slowed down, one of these basins should be placed to catch 
 the silt which is dropped and keep it out of the ditch where it would 
 be deposited if the basin is not provided. These silt basins also serve 
 as inspection manholes for making occasional investigations of how 
 ditches are working. 
 
 These silt basins are constructed on the principle of shallow wells 
 which extend down a few 
 feet below the bottom of 
 the tile. The cross sec- 
 tional area of the basin 
 should be equal to from 
 five to ten times the cross 
 sectional area of the tile 
 which empties into it. The 
 flow of the water from the 
 tile into this well or basin 
 checks its velocity and 
 causes it to deposit its silt 
 
 
 
 COV ER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 49 
 
 A good design of silt basin. 
 
in the bottom of the basin. The water flowing out of the far side of 
 the basin has been freed of the bulk of its silt so that the stretch of 
 tile lying below is protected from any deposit of silt which would 
 have occurred as a result of lowering the grade of the ditch at this 
 point. After each heavy rainy spell, these basins should be inspected. 
 If the silt has filled up to near the bottom of the tile it should be 
 cleaned out. These basins should be walled up to prevent their dirt 
 walls from caving in. An excellent way to do is to dig them circular 
 and then wall them up with hard burned brick or silo blocks, which can 
 be laid up quickly and easily. If dug square, they can be walled up 
 with road plank. The trouble with this is that wood will decay in a 
 few years from the alternate wetting and drying. If planks are used, 
 they should first be painted with a coat of creosote or other water 
 proofing paint to prolong their life. 
 
 Protect the The outlet of all ditches should be protected against 
 outlets washing of the banks of the stream or open ditch into 
 
 which they empty, and against damage by the trampling 
 of live stock which may come to the mouth of the ditch to drink. A 
 bulkhead should be built of stone or concrete. It is also well to 
 build an "apron" under the mouth of the tile for the water to fall onto, 
 and so prevent the flow of water from the tile from undermining the 
 mouth of the ditch. 
 
 It is best to build these bulk heads as soon as the first few rods of 
 ditch have been dug, so that the first tile can be laid tightly into it as 
 the bulkhead is being built, and to protect the mouth of the ditch from 
 being washed out while the system of tile is being laid. The first ten 
 to fifteen feet of the ditch should be made of vitrified sewer pipe, or 
 of iron pipe, because ordinary drain tile will disintegrate in a few 
 years when subjected to the combined action of air and of freezing. 
 This injury occurs only in the first few feet of the open end of the 
 ditch, the rest of the ditch being undamaged by freezing if well burned 
 tile are used. 
 
 The mouth of the tile should also be protected from the entrance 
 of dogs and field animals. A very good protection of this sort consists 
 of a hinged cover of light iron bars, or fine meshed woven wire fenc- 
 ing made of heavy galvanized iron wire. If this is hinged from the top, 
 it will give under the force of the stream of water and so will not 
 interfere with its flow. At the same time, it will swing back tightly 
 over the mouth of the tile when no water is flowing thru. The open 
 spaces in the fencing, or iron bars, permit one to look up into the 
 open mouth of the tile to inspect it. By using a mirror, a beam of 
 light can be thrown back into the tile so one can see for several 
 hundred feet into a straight ditch and locate any obstruction which 
 might have gotten into it. 
 
 50 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 What Tile To Use 
 
 Use only the best to be had, even tho you may have to pay a 
 little more for it than you would have to pay for some other kind. It 
 is utter folly to use an inferior grade of tile just because you can get 
 it for a dollar or so less a thousand feet than you have to pay for the 
 best grade. Look at it this way for a minute : When you go to the 
 trouble and expense of putting in a system of tile ditches you do not 
 want to do it all over again. You should not have to do it over again, 
 nor should your children have to, if it is done right. You will not 
 have to, and they will not have to, if you use a first class grade of 
 tile and do a good job of laying it. But if you use a cheap, poor grade 
 of tile, it is certain that at least your children will have to do the job 
 over again ; and it is almost as much of a cinch that you yourself will 
 have to do it unless you are already well past middle age when you 
 do it the first time. Not only do you want the system to last for 
 years, but you want to know that there is no question about its work- 
 ing satisfactorily all the time. 
 
 You do not send a boy or a hired man off into a far field out of 
 sight all alone to work on some important job unless you know that 
 he is able to do that work, that he knows how to do it, and that you 
 can trust him to do it all alone himself. For the very same reason, you 
 should not bury tile out of sight in the ground to do important work 
 for you unless you are sure that they are an efficient, durable grade 
 of tile ; unless you know that they are a grade of tile which will stand 
 up for years, and even for generations. 
 
 The cost of the tile represents only about one third of the cost 
 of tiling land, the various items of labor representing the other two 
 thirds. By buying a cheap grade of tile you might be able to save 
 a few cents a rod on the cost of the finished job. But by making that 
 saving you practically insure that within a few years at least several 
 of those cheap tile you bought so as to save those few pennies a rod 
 will "go down" on you. By going down they clog all of the ditch 
 above them and ruin enough crop in one season to pay all of the costs 
 of laying the ditch they clogged up. In a few more years at the most, 
 you will have to take up all those cheap tile you laid and lay new ones. 
 This will cost you more than it cost to lay those poor tile in the first 
 place, or' than it would have cost you to lay good ones while you were 
 at it. And what is even worse, in the mean time you have not had 
 as efficient service out of your ditches as you should have had ; and 
 thereby you have lost money each year you were depending on these 
 "broken reeds." 
 
 You simply cannot afford to be so foolishly economical as to lay 
 inferior tile, or anything poorer than the best, simply to save a few 
 dollars a thousand feet of ditch. 
 
 51 
 
Buy of a The firm manufacturing the tile you use is one of the 
 reliable firm surest guarantees possible as to the quality of the 
 tile you are using. It is just like buying any other 
 manufactured article. You should buy the product of an old, well 
 established firm which has the reputation of putting out a large 
 volume of good tile, and which has been doing it for many years in 
 succession. The very fact that they are getting enough business to 
 keep them going on an extensive scale year after year is, in itself, 
 proof that their tile are good. The small, ''neighborhood" manufac- 
 turer cannot afford the expensive machinery, skilled workmen, fore- 
 men and superintendents necessary to put out a high class product. 
 Only the large manufacturer, who produces on an extensive scale, 
 can afford this investment and operating expense necessary to make 
 the highest grade of tile. Their large overhead costs of operation are 
 spread over such a large volume of product that it amounts to only 
 a small amount for each carload, or each thousand feet of tile. This 
 enables them to put more money into the various processes of man- 
 ufacture and so put out a better quality of tile than can the small 
 scale manufacturer who sells his tile at the same price. 
 
 Because of the large scale on which he operates the large manufac- 
 turer is always able to give you immediate shipments of whatever size 
 of tile you may want or need. He operates his factory the whole year 
 around and lays up a big store of finished tile to meet the demands 
 of the season when his manufacturing facilities cannot keep up with 
 his shipments. His large capitalization enables him to do this. But 
 the small plant cannot afford to carry this heavy load of money tied 
 up in manufactured product stored in his yards. He often accepts 
 orders for tile which he does not have on hand, and you have to wait 
 until he can manufacture them, and then fills other orders which have 
 accumulated ahead of yours, and such waiting is very apt to cause 
 you considerable loss, often means a delay of several weeks. 
 
 Cement It may be possible to make good cement tile. But there is 
 tile s ^^ room for an abundance of doubt on this question, and 
 
 as to the advisability of using them especially the smaller 
 sizes which are made by what is known as the "dry mix" process. No 
 tiling systems in which cement tile have been used have yet been in 
 operation long enough to prove in actual practice that cement tile will 
 last as long as it is known that good clay tile will continue to operate 
 efficiently. So that the least that can be said on the subject is that 
 their durability has not yet been proven in actual practice under regu- 
 lation farm drainage conditions. 
 
 The chief advocates of the use of, cement tile are the manufactur- 
 ers of tile making machinery, not the manufacturers of cement. These 
 manufacturers of tile making machinery have extensively advocated 
 the use of small type machines by which they claim that a man can 
 make his own tile right on his farm cheaper than he can buy them. 
 
 If you are seriously contemplating the use of cement tile, especial- 
 ly if you are thinking of making your own tile, here are some features 
 of the problem which you should consider seriously before definitely 
 deciding to do it: 
 
 52 
 
Drain tile offer one of the most severe conditions which concrete 
 is asked to withstand. It is asked to withstand the decomposing 
 action of running water which is charged with more or less carbonic 
 and other soil acids which exert a dissolving action of no mean effect 
 on the cement contained in the tile. The mere fact that foundations, 
 footings, piers, etc. of massive construction have stood for years, even 
 tho buried in the ground much as tile are buried, is no proof that thin 
 walled cement tile will stand up. These are massive and are saturated 
 with standing water only. The tile walls are thin, are not only saturat- 
 ed with water, but are also subjected to the effects of running water; 
 the flow of water greatly increases the rate at which the cement is 
 dissolved out. Running water also has an eroding effect which mater- 
 ially adds to and aids the dissolving action of the water in its tendency 
 to destroy the tile. 
 
 In order to reduce the labor cost to the lowest point possible, the 
 smaller sizes of cement tile are made by the so-called "dry mix" pro- 
 cess. The cement and sand are mixed together dry and then simply 
 moistened with a small amount of water, just enough to hold the 
 cement and sand mixture together after the jacket or mold is removed 
 which is within a minute or less after the mixture has been packed 
 into the mold. And yet cement manufacturers constantly teach that 
 in order to make a strong durable concrete it is necessary to use 
 enough water to produce a "quaky" or a "slushed" mixture. In the 
 manufacture of cement tile this sort of a mixture is used only in mak- 
 ing the very large sizes of tile for use in main ditches. 
 
 Also, when cement manufacturers do discuss the making of 
 cement tile they say you should not use a mixture thinner than one 
 part of cement to three parts of coarse sand or fine gravel. To make 
 a mixture this rich, or any richer, makes the cost so high that cement 
 tile cannot be sold profitably in competition with high grade, clay tile. 
 The result is that manufacturers of cement tile use at least four, if not 
 five or more parts of sand or gravel to one part of cement. 
 
 A cement tile factory can be put up with a small investment. The 
 result is that the country is dotted with the ruins of abandoned cement 
 tile factories. Individuals and small companies have gone into the 
 business with a small invested capital and with little or no experience 
 in drainage or the manufacture of concrete products. The superin- 
 tendents and workmen have been locaj men who are not familiar with 
 the important problems of materials, mixture and curing required in 
 the manufacture of concrete products. After a few months, or a few 
 years at the most, there comes a lull in their business and they quit 
 it. If the tile you bought of them fails you in a few years, you have 
 no means of collecting damages; the firm you bought of is out of 
 business. 
 
 Large contracting firms which use a great deal of cement require 
 that all cement used by them shall pass rigid laboratory analyses and 
 tests. They frequently find it necessary to reject part or all of a large 
 shipment because it is below the standard of quality required. Thus 
 they carefully analyze and test their cement before using it because 
 they realize the important part which the quality of the cement plays 
 in determining the quality of the finished concrete which they produce. 
 The cement tile factories scattered over the country cannot afford to 
 
 53 
 
employ high priced chemists for this work and so do not use this care 
 and precaution with regard to the cement they use. The result is 
 found in much of the product they put out. 
 
 It is a waste of good money, and of good time as well, to attempt 
 to make your own tile and save any money if you count your own 
 time as worth any thing. You are not skilled in the work, and so can- 
 not make them as rapidly as can even the most inefficiently operated 
 factory. You have to buy the machinery and erect drying and curing 
 sheds. The chances are ninety-nine to one that you do not have a 
 gravel deposit that is at all good enough. Contrary to the advertise- 
 ments of the machinery manufacturers, making cement tile is not a job 
 at which you can work odd hours. To get even a half way decent 
 quality of product, and get it at a reasonable labor cost, one must 
 operate the plant in full day shifts. Then the tile must be watched 
 carefully and watered freely and frequently for several weeks. At 
 best, the home manufacture of cement tile is a delusion and a snare. 
 
 Clay The one kind of drain tile which has stood the test of time is 
 tile made of clay or of shale. They are still working in this coun- 
 try, after three quarters of a century of continuous and satis- 
 factory use. They are still working in Europe after a full century or 
 more of use. So their quality and efficiency is known. There is no 
 guess work about it. 
 
 Clay tile should be close grained and of fine "texture." They 
 should be hard burned so they will absorb a minimum amount of wa- 
 ter; remember that water enters thru the joints of the ditch, not thru 
 the walls of the tile. Salt glazing is unnecessary, it adds no more 
 strength than would a coat of paint, and often covers up a multitude 
 of sins within the walls of the tile itself. "Vitrified" is a word which 
 is used to conjure with by some manufacturers and salesmen of clay 
 products, and it means far less in terms of service than the average 
 user would have you believe it means. When clay is fully vitrified 
 it fuses or melts into a continuous mass like glass. No drain tile are 
 vitrified completely; if they were, they would not hold their shape 
 in the kiln. 
 
 What is wanted is a tile which has been burned hard enough 
 vitrified to such degree, if you persist in wanting that word that it 
 will not flake or chip, will have a clear metallic ring, and be strong 
 enough to carry the load placed on it. If vitrified to too great an ex- 
 tent, the tile become too brittle and crack and break too readily in 
 handling and shipping, thus increasing the danger of getting cracked 
 tile into the ditch. 
 
 There are two clases or kinds of clay tile on the market. One is 
 made of the soft surface or "drift" clays of more or less impurities and 
 irregularities in character. The other is made from the stonelike 
 shales, or clay in a natural condition which resembles rock. The 
 shales are finer grained than are the surface clays. They make a finer 
 grained, more close textured and consequently, when properly 
 burned, more durable drain tile than do the surface clays. 
 
 A more elaborate equipment of machinery, and greater labor and 
 other costs of operation, are required to manufacture the shale tile 
 than are required for the surface clay tile because of the stonelike 
 
 54 
 
character of the shales. Surface clays are found in all parts of the 
 country. This fact, coupled with the smaller investment and operating 
 capital required, has caused small neighborhood plants to spring up 
 extensively over the country. Available shale deposits are found 
 only here and there. This fact, coupled with the large investment and 
 operating capital needed, results in there being far fewer shale tile 
 factories than surface clay tile factories, and these are grouped or 
 clustered where these available deposits are to be found. These 
 centers are noted for their extensive tile factories, as Battle Creek is 
 noted for breakfast foods and Detroit for automobiles. 
 
 Every step in the process of manufacture must be watched care- 
 fully. Neglect in any one will give any one of several faults which 
 will weaken or shorten the life of the finished tile. 
 
 1. The shale must be of such a nature as will adapt it to the vari- 
 ous necessary processes of manufacture. It must be fine grained, or 
 the tile will be coarse grained. It must be free from all particles of 
 lime, or the particles of burned lime will slack when they become moist 
 after the tile are laid, and will chip or crack the tile. The shale must 
 be uniform in character thruout the entire deposit, or the tile will not 
 be uniform in quality from one lot to another. 
 
 2. The shale must be ground fine, and thoroly "pugged" or 
 mixed with water or it will come from the shaping machinery "lamin- 
 ated," or in layers which will burn in layers and so scale off or split 
 afterward. When improperly pugged tile are burned in the kilns some 
 spots or portions will burn more quickly than others and the result 
 will be "internal strains" which will cause cracks to form inside the 
 walls of the tile, or even clear thru them. These cracks may not form 
 until after the tile are laid, just as you have known iron castings or 
 lamp chimneys to break from no apparent cause when standing idle, or 
 a broken casting to show an old internal crack which did not appear 
 anywhere on the surface thus leaving only a thin shell of metal to be 
 broken. The cause is similar, "internal strains." This pugging is 
 one of the most vitally important steps in the entire process of manu- 
 facturing drain tile, it is the one in which manufacturers fail most 
 often to do their full duty. 
 
 3. The shaping machinery must be accurate, or the finished 
 tile will not be accurate in size. Faults in the machinery itself may 
 cause laminations. 
 
 4. The "green" tile must be cured in curing or drying houses 
 where the rate of drying may be controlled accurately. If the dry- 
 ing is not properly controlled, then the walls of the tile will not be 
 uniformly dry thruout their entire thickness when they are placed in 
 the kilns to be burned. When they are burned, internal strains will be 
 produced just as was explained as resulting from improper pugging. 
 
 5. The burning must be done very carefully by skilled burners 
 in properly designed kilns. Too low or too high temperatures at 
 various stages of the burning process will produce a very inferior tile. 
 
 6. The contents of each kiln must be sorted very carefully after 
 burning to remove all crooked tile ; those that are cracked, or chipped ; 
 those that are "laminated" ; those that are not burned hard enough ; 
 some of the more conscientious companies even sort out those that 
 are white washed, a fault in looks only, not in quality. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Why Denison Tile Are Best 
 
 Written by cAmos P. Potts, 
 Ceramist of the Mason City 'Brick & Tile Co. 
 
 Here at Mason City, Iowa, we have an extensive deposit of clay 
 and shale which is better adapted to the manufacture of drain tile 
 than any other deposits known in this country. Combined with the 
 quality of our raw materials is the fact that we have the most exten- 
 sive drain tile manufacturing plants, and use the best process of 
 manufacture, to be found in the world. Consequently we produce the 
 most uniform, the highest grade, and the most durable drain tile 
 manufactured in America. The result is that the Mason City Brick 
 and Tile Company produces one seventh of all the drain tile manufac- 
 tured in the United States. 
 
 The raw material O ur deposit of raw materials consists of the 
 urki^Vk w^ no. Hackberry clay and the Devonian shaio. The 
 
 W11IC.I1 WC U.OC 1t ii C.ITA 
 
 Hackberry clay lies on top of the Devonian 
 
 shale, but is not what is known as a "surface clay." It is what is left 
 from the decomposition of an ancient deposit which was originally 
 about one hundred times as thick as the present layer of clay. This 
 
 Mining the clay and shale used in making Denison Double Process Drain Tile. 
 
 56 
 
leaves only the finest part of the original deposit, that which is best 
 adapted to the manufacture of drain tile. This Hackberry clay is 
 very fine grained, thus adapting it to the manufacture of a fine grained 
 drain tile. As compared with the Devonian it is also what is known 
 as "highly refractory/' which means that it requires a higher temper- 
 ature to melt it down and cause it to lose it's shape in the kiln. 
 
 Our Devonian Shale is a clay which is stone-like in character. It 
 is exceedingly fine grained, even finer than our Hackberry which is 
 unusually fine for a clay. This deposit is about thirty feet thick. It 
 is exceptionally uniform in quality thruout its entire thickness. This 
 Devonian shale melts, or reaches "full vitrification," at considerably 
 lower temperatures than does the Hackberry clay. 
 
 Other shale deposits of this country consist of a series of layers 
 or strata which possess different characteristics. This makes it prac- 
 tically impossible for manufacturers using these deposits to make tile 
 which are uniform in character and quality. But the unvarying uni- 
 formity of our deposits enables us to produce tile of equally unvarying 
 uniformity in character and quality. This is very important to you. 
 Each individual Denison tile you lay in your ditches is just as good as 
 every other one you lay in those ditches ; they are all the finest grained, 
 closest fibered, truest shaped, strongest and most durable tile you can 
 buy anywhere. 
 
 Why we mix these Neither the Hackberry clay nor the Devonian 
 fiAi-r* wi a f A f i a 1 c shale, used by itself, is adapted to the econom- 
 
 LWL> 111 rtLCiICllo . , . ~ . 1*11 t j_'i i > 
 
 ical manufacture of a high class drain tile. But 
 
 by mixing the two together in accurately determined proportions we 
 are able to produce a very fine grained, close textured, hard burned, 
 durable drain tile which will serve you and your descendants faithfully 
 for generations. If this were not so we could not now be manufactur- 
 ing one seventh of the nation's drain tile output. 
 
 The first grinding of the day and shale. 
 
 57 
 
The Devonian 
 shale is so exceeding- 
 ly fine grained that 
 it must be mixed 
 with something else 
 which will give it 
 the necessary frame 
 work to prevent the 
 formation of "lamin- 
 ations," or thin lay- 
 ers one upon the oth- 
 er, in the process of 
 molding the tile. The 
 
 Ground clay stored in curing shed until taken to the mixer Hackberry clay i S 
 
 enough coarser than 
 the Devonian shale 
 
 to furnish this necessary frame work to prevent lamination ; and yet 
 it is not sufficiently coarse grained to produce a coarse grained tile. 
 Only sufficient of the Hackberry is used to furnish this framework. 
 
 The Devonian melts at a lower temperature than does the 
 Hackberry. By burning our tile to a sufficiently high temperature 
 to produce a high state of vitrification in the Devonian portion of 
 the tile we have not heated it enough to melt down the Hackberry 
 "framework." This enables us to produce a very hard burned tile, 
 with a high degree of vitrification, without any danger of the tile 
 melting down and losing its shape, or becoming brittle and easily 
 broken. 
 
 Thus Denison tile are not only hard burned, but they are fine 
 grained, close textured, uniform in size, straight and cylindrical in 
 shape; tile which are easy to lay, and which last for generations. By 
 means of this mixture of Hackberry clay and Devonian shale which 
 we use, Denison tile are finer grained, more compact, straighter 
 and stronger than 
 is made from any 
 other deposit of shale 
 or of clay. 
 
 Advantages o f 
 our raw materials 
 
 1. We have only 
 two kinds of raw ma- 
 terials t o handle. 
 These are very uni- 
 form in quality and 
 character. 
 
 2. Other Iowa 
 and Minnesota de- 
 posits contain from 
 six to twelve kinds of 
 shale which must be 
 
 7 he pugg mill 
 kneaded into 
 
 where the clay is mi.ved with water and 
 a very uniform mixture. 
 
 58 
 
mixed with great care to give 
 even a fairly good grade of 
 product. 
 
 3. This greatly simplifies 
 our problem of getting the 
 proper mixture to give us a 
 high grade finished product. 
 It is just that much insur- 
 ance to you that in buying 
 Denison tile you get the best 
 drain tile made. 
 
 Between the first and second pugging the mixture 
 is run between these powerful steel rollers. 
 
 4. The exceedingly fine grained character of both of these materials 
 makes it possible for us to produce a finer grained, closer textured 
 and more compact tile than can be produced from any other deposits. 
 
 5. The Hackberry clay and the Devonian shale mix more readily 
 with water when "pugging" or preparing them to go to the molding 
 machines than do other Iowa and Minnesota deposits. This decreases 
 the danger of weak spots in the walls of our tile resulting from "in- 
 ternal strains" explained in the last chapter of Mr. King's book. 
 
 Our "double process" O ur Hackberry clay and Devonian shale 
 of manufacturing tUe are ground to a very fine powder and mixed 
 
 in the proper proportions necessary to pro- 
 duce tile of the desired quality. They must be ground to this fine pow- 
 der so they will mix thoroly with each other and with water. This 
 thoro mixing is necessary so that they will mold without laminations 
 or cracks being formed, and so that they will be of a uniform character 
 
 thruout when burned. 
 
 Next they are 
 thoroly "pugged." 
 This pugging con- 
 sists of mixing the 
 powdered clay and 
 shale with a definite- 
 ly known and care- 
 fully controlled 
 quantity of water, 
 and thoroly "work- 
 ing" the mixture as 
 dough is worked or 
 kneaded in the mak- 
 ing of bread. This 
 pugging is done so 
 thoroly that each in- 
 dividual grain of the 
 powdered material, 
 so tiny that a micro- 
 
 After preliminary grinding the mixture is shredded and stones r/accai- r fr 
 
 removed by being passed through these powerful disintegrators. SCOpe IS nCCCSSary TO 
 
 59 
 
see it, is coated with 
 a film of water. 
 
 Then this pasty 
 mass is run thru a 
 set of heavy steel 
 rolls to crush any 
 lumps which may 
 have been formed 
 during the pugging 
 process. From these 
 rolls it is taken to a 
 second pug mill and 
 given i t s second 
 pugging. Either the 
 first or the second 
 pugging, which we 
 give the material, is 
 alone as much pug- 
 ging as other manu- 
 facturers give their 
 material. This sec- 
 ond pugging is what gives our tile their name of the "Denison Double 
 Process Tile." 
 
 After a second pugging the mixture is forced through this 
 molding machine, where a continuous tube of clay is formed 
 which is automatically cut into uniform lengths. 
 
 After this second pugging, the now thoroly prepared clay is sent 
 to the molding machinery. Here it is molded and cut into the proper 
 sizes and lengths of tile and sent to the drying or curing sheds. In 
 these sheds the temperature and air movements are under perfect 
 control at all times. This gives the careful, uniform drying which is 
 so necessary in the manufacture of high grade tile. 
 
 When properly dried or cured, the tile are stacked in the kilns 
 and put thru the 
 burning process un- 
 der the supervision 
 o f highly skilled 
 burners. In these 
 kilns we use a speci- 
 ally designed system 
 of drafts which in- 
 sures a constant sup- 
 ply of heat at the de- 
 sired temperature 
 uniform thruout the 
 entire space of the 
 
 . In this Way all Before being put into the kiln, the tile are cured in the drying 
 
 4-Up f'lp '-n triln shed, where temperature and air movement are under complete 
 
 60 
 
are burned to a very uniform 
 degree of hardness. 
 
 After the process o f 
 burning has been completed, 
 the kilns are allowed to cool 
 slowly. When the contents 
 are cooled, the tile are re- 
 moved and graded carefully 
 to remove any which have 
 been damaged or mishapen 
 in any way in handling. Our 
 sorting and grading is very 
 rigid. It is so rigid that only 
 tile which are true to size, 
 straight and uniform in dia- 
 meter, free from all cracks 
 and laminations, sound and 
 thoroly hard burned, ever reach our storage yards for shipment to our 
 customers. 
 
 
 From the drying room the tile are taken to the kiln, 
 stacked carefully and burned zvith the greatest scien 
 tific accuracy. 
 
 The advantages of 
 our double process 
 o f manufacture 
 
 1. The double pugging which we give our 
 finely ground raw materials absolutely insures 
 the proper moistening and mixing of the two 
 grades of raw material which we use. The en- 
 tire mass is of a highly uniform character thruout when it goes to the 
 molding machinery. This, in turn, insures a highly uniform grade 
 of tile for shipment to our customers. 
 
 2. This extra pugging reduces to the minimum all chances of 
 the formation of "laminations," or the "internal strains" which Mr. 
 King explained thoroly in the last chapter of his book. 
 
 3. This extra pugging also gives a very compact, fine grained 
 and close textured tile wall which is very important in determining 
 
 the length of the useful life 
 of the tile. 
 
 4. Our controlled meth- 
 od of drying insures "safe 
 drying." It insures the tile 
 against any internal cracks 
 which do not show on the 
 surface, or those external 
 cracks which extend clear 
 thru the walls of the tile. It 
 also is one more insurance 
 against the formation of any 
 internal strains which give 
 hidden weaknesses to the 
 
 tile. TllCSC are all faults 
 
 which are found extensively 
 
 After cooling slowly at the close 
 
 P your e %d h erl fl " ****** '" '** '"" 
 
 of the burning 
 
 *"* " flwfl " 
 61 
 
in clay tile which are simply 
 dried in open sheds where 
 the rate of drying is beyond 
 the control of the manufac- 
 turer and is entirely depend- 
 ent on the condition of the 
 weather. 
 
 5. Our extensive out- 
 put of some ten thousand 
 car loads of drain tile a year 
 permits us to employ a full 
 force of expert superinten- 
 dents and workmen from one 
 year's end to another. These 
 
 men give every step in our process of manufacture a more costly and 
 careful supervision and inspection than can the smaller scale manu- 
 facturer whose overhead costs such as these, must be charged up to 
 a much smaller volume of output. This large volume output of 
 ours, the largest in America, enables us to sort our product much 
 more rigidly and mercilessly than can a company with a small volume 
 of output, and still pay ourselves a reasonable rate of profit on our 
 investment. 
 
 A storage yard at one of our eight factories. 
 
 Why you should 
 buy Denison Double 
 Process Tile 
 
 1. Because it is the finest grained, clos- 
 est textured, strongest, longest lived, straight- 
 est, most uniformily sized and shaped tile on 
 the market. 
 
 2. Because it costs you no more than the best tile sold by other 
 firms, even tho none of them is as good as the Denison Double Pro- 
 cess Tile. 
 
 - 
 
 Within 24 hours after an order is received at our 
 office it is loaded onto the cars and shipped to the 
 purchaser. 
 
 62 
 
 3. Because our immense 
 volume of output, and the 
 fact that we operate twelve 
 months in the year, insures 
 that we can always furnish 
 you any tile you want, in any 
 quantity you want it, as 
 quickly as it is possible for 
 freight service to get it to 
 you. 
 
 4. Because the five 
 steam railroads which dom- 
 inate the freight industry of 
 this section pass thru Mason 
 City. This gives us the best 
 freight shipping facilities 
 west of Chicago. 
 
One reason "why ive can always give you prompt shipment, 
 
 5. Our large resources and financial reliability, and our over 
 thirty years of reputation for fair dealing, insure that you will get 
 nothing but the highest class product, and the squarest possible treat- 
 ment from us. 
 
 MASON CITY BRICK AND TILE CO. 
 
 Mason City, Iowa. 
 
 A bird's-eye view of one of our factories. 
 
 63 
 
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