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IX.
PLANTING AND GROWING TREES

Whoever has recently bought, inherited, or otherwise become the owner of a farm, has usually found some part or parts of it devoted to wood; and this, if not in excess, he will mainly preserve, while he studies and plans with a view to the ultimate devotion to timber of just those portions of his land that are best adapted to that use. In locating that timber, I would have him consider these suggestions:

I. Land wisely planted with trees, and fenced so far as need be to keep out cattle, costs nothing. Whatever else you grow involves labor and expenditure; trees grow of their own accord. You may neglect them utterly – may wander over the earth and be absent for ten or twenty years, while your fences decay and your fields are overcropped to exhaustion; even your meadows may be run out by late mowing and close feeding at both ends of the season, till a dozen acres will hardly subsist a span of horses and a cow; but your woods need only to be let alone to insure that their value shall have decidedly increased during your absence. They will richly reward labor and care in thinning, trimming, and transplanting – you may profitably employ in them any time that you can spare them – but they will do very well if simply let alone. And, unlike any other product with which I am acquainted, you may take crop after crop of wood from the same lot, and the soil will be richer and more productive after the last than it was before the first. Whether wholly because their roots permeate and break up the soil during their life and enrich it in their decay, or for diverse reasons, it is certainly true that land – and especially poor land – is enriched by growing upon it a crop of almost any timber, the evergreens possibly excepted. So, should you ever have land that you cannot till to profit, whether because it is too poor, or because you have a sufficiency that is better, you should at once devote it to wood.

II. Your springs and streams will be rendered more equable and enduring by increasing the area and the luxuriance of your timber. They may have become scanty and capricious under a policy of reckless, wholesale destruction of trees; they will be rëenforced and reinvigorated by doubling the area of your woods, while quadrupling the number, and increasing the average size, of your trees.

III. All ravines and steep hill-sides should be devoted to trees. Every acre too rocky to be thoroughly cleared of stone and plowed should be set apart for tree-growing. Wherever the soil will be gullied or washed away by violent rains if under tillage, it should be excluded from cultivation and given up to trees. Men often doubt the profit of heavy manuring; and well they may, if three-fourths of the fertilizers applied are soaked out and swept away by flooding rains or sudden thaws and floated off to some distant sea or bay; but let all that is applied to the soil only remain there till it is carted away in crops, and it will hardly be possible to manure too highly for profit.

IV. Trees, especially evergreens, may be so disposed as to modify agreeably the average temperature of your farm, or at least of the most important parts of it. When I bought my place – or rather the first installment of it – the best spot I could select for a garden lay at the foot of a hill which half surrounded it on the south and east, leaving it exposed to the full sweep of north and north-west winds; so that, though the soil was gravelly and warm, my garden was likely to be cold and backward. To remedy this, I planted four rows of evergreens (Balsam Fir, Pine, Red Cedar, and Hemlock), along a low ridge bounding it on the north, following an inward curve of the ridge at its west end; and those evergreens have in sixteen years grown into very considerable trees, forming a shady, cleanly, inviting bower, or sylvan retreat, daintily carpeted with the fallen leaves of the overhanging firs. I judge that the average temperature of the soil for some yards southward of this wind-break is at least five degrees higher, throughout the growing season, than it formerly was or would now be if these evergreens were swept away; while the aspect of the place is agreeably diversified, and even beautified, by their appearance. I believe it would sell for some hundreds of dollars more with than without that thrifty, growing clump of evergreens.

V. I have already urged, though not strongly enough, that crops, as well as springs, will be improved by keeping the crests of ridges thickly wooded, thus depositing moisture in Winter and Spring, to be slowly yielded to the adjacent slopes during the heat and drouth of Summer. I firmly believe that the slopes of a hill whose crest is heavily wooded will yield larger average crops than slope and crest together would do if both were bare of trees.

VI. The banks of considerable streams, ponds, etc., may often be so planted with trees that these will shade more water than land, to the comfort and satisfaction of the fish, and the protection of those banks from abrasion by floods and rapid currents. Sycamore, Elm, and Willow, do well here; if choice Grape-Vines are set beside and allowed to run over some of them, the effect is good, and the grapes acceptable to man and bird.

VII. Never forget that a good tree grows as thriftily and surely as a poor one. Many a farmer has to-day ten to forty acres of indifferent cord-wood where he might, at a very slight cost, have had instead an equal quantity of choice timber, worth ten times as much. Hickory, Chestnut, and Walnut, while they yield nuts that can be eaten or sold, are worth far more as timber than an equal bulk of Beech, Birch, Hemlock, or Red Oak. Chestnut has more than doubled in value within the last few years, mainly because it has been found excellent for the inside wood-work of dwellings. Locust also seems to be increasing in value. Ten acres of large, thrifty Locust near this City would now buy a pretty good farm; as I presume it would, if located near any of our great cities.

VIII. Where several good varieties of Timber are grown together, some insect or atmospheric trouble may blast one of them, yet leave the residue alive and hearty. And, if all continue thrifty, some may be cut out and sold, leaving others more room to grow and rapidly attain a vigorous maturity.

IX. Wherever timber has become scarce and valuable, a wood-lot should be thinned out, nevermore cleared off, unless it is to be devoted to a different use. It seems to me that destroying a forest because we want timber is like smothering a hive of bees because we want honey.

X. Timber should be cut with intelligent reference to the future. Locust and other valuable trees that it is desirable should throw up shoots from the stump, and rapidly reproduce their kind, should be cut in March or April; while trees that you want to exterminate should be cut in August, so that they may not sprout. There may be exceptions to this rule; but I do not happen to recollect any. Evergreens do not sprout; and I think these should be cut in Winter – at all events, not in Spring, when full of sap and thus prone to rapid decay.

XI. Your plantation will furnish pleasant and profitable employment at almost any season. I doubt that any one in this country has ever yet bestowed so much labor and care on a young forest as it will amply reward. Sow your seeds thickly; begin to thin the young trees when they are a foot high, and to trim them so soon as they are three feet, and you may have thousands thriving on a fertile acre, and pushing their growth upward with a rapidity and to an altitude outrunning all preconception.

XII. Springs and streams will soon appear where none have appeared and endured for generations, when we shall have reclothed the nakedness of the Plains with adequate forests. Rains will become moderately frequent where they are now rare, and confined to the season when they are of least use to the husbandman.

I may have more to say of trees by-and-by, but rest here for the present. The importance of the topic can hardly be overrated.

X.
DRAINING – MY OWN

My farm is in the township of Newcastle, Westchester County, N. Y., 35 miles from our City Hall, and a little eastward of the hamlet known as Chappaqua, called into existence by a station on the Harlem Railroad. It embraces the south-easterly half of the marsh which the railroad here traverses from south to north – my part measuring some fifteen acres, with five acres more of slightly elevated dry land between it and the foot of the rather rugged hill which rises thence on the east and on the south, and of which I now own some fifty acres, lying wholly eastward of my low land, and in good part covered with forest. Of this, I bought more than half in 1853, and the residue in bits from time to time as I could afford it. The average cost was between $130 and $140 per acre: one small and poor old cottage being the only building I found on the tract, which consisted of the ragged edges of two adjacent farms, between the western portions of which mine is now interposed, while they still adjoin each other beyond the north and south road, half a mile from the railroad, on which their buildings are located and which forms my eastern boundary. My stony, gravelly upland mainly slopes to the west; but two acres on my east line incline toward the road which bounds me in that direction, while two more on my south-east corner descend to the little brook which, entering at that corner, keeps irregularly near my south line, until it emerges, swelled by a smaller runnel that enters my lowland from the north and traverses it to meet and pass off with the larger brooklet aforesaid. I have done some draining, to no great purpose, on the more level portions of my upland; but my lowland has challenged my best efforts in this line, and I shall here explain them, for the encouragement and possible guidance of novices in draining. Let me speak first of

My Difficulties.– This marsh or bog consisted, when I first grappled with it, of some thirty acres, whereof I then owned less than a third. To drain it to advantage, one person should own it all, or the different owners should coöperate; but I had to go it alone, with no other aid than a freely accorded privilege of straightening as well as deepening the brook which wound its way through the dryer meadow just below me, forming here the boundary of two adjacent farms. I spent $100 on this job, which is still imperfect; but the first decided fall in the stream occurs nearly a mile below me; and you tire easily of doing at your own cost work which benefits several others as much as yourself. My drainage will never be perfect till this brook, with that far larger one in which it is merged sixty rods below me, shall have been sunk three or four feet, at a further expense of at least $500.

This bog or swamp, when I first bought into it, was mainly dedicated to the use of frogs, muskrats and snapping-turtles. A few small water-elms and soft maples grew upon it, with swamp alder partly fringing the western base of the hill east of it, where the rocks which had, through thousands of years, rolled from the hill, thickly covered the surface, with springs bubbling up around and among them. Decaying stumps and imbedded fragments of trees argued that timber formerly covered this marsh as well as the encircling hills. A tall, dense growth of blackberry briers, thoroughwort, and all manner of marsh-weeds and grasses, covered the center of the swamp each Summer; but my original portion of it, being too wet for these, was mainly addicted to hassocks or tussocks of wiry, worthless grass; their matted roots rising in hard bunches a few inches above the soft, bare, encircling mud. The bog ranged in depth from a few inches to five or six feet, and was composed of black, peaty, vegetable mold, diversified by occasional streaks of clay or sand, all resting on a substratum of hard, coarse gravel, out of which two or three springs bubbled up, in addition to the half a dozen which poured in from the east, and a tiny rivulet which (except in a very dry, hot time) added the tribute of three or four more, which sprang from the base of a higher shelf of the hill near the middle of what is now my farm. Add to these that the brook which brawled and foamed down my hill-side near my south line as aforesaid, had brought along an immensity of pebbles and gravel of which it had mainly formed my five acres of dryer lowland, had thus built up a pretty swale, whereon it had the bad habit of filling up one channel, and then cutting another, more devious and eccentric, if possible, than any of its predecessors – and you have some idea of the obstacles I encountered and resolved to overcome. One of my first substantial improvements was the cutting of a straight channel for this current and, by walling it with large stones, compelling the brook to respect necessary limitations. It was not my fault that some of those stones were set nearly upright, so as to veneer the brook rather than thoroughly constrain it: hence, some of the stones, undermined by strong currents, were pitched forward into the brook by high Spring freshets, so as to require rësetting more carefully. This was a mistake, but, not one of

My Blunders.– These, the natural results of inexperience and haste, were very grave. Not only had I had no real experience in draining when I began, but I could hire no foreman who know much more of it than I did. I ought to have begun by securing an ample and sure fall where the water left my land, and next cut down the brooklet or open ditch into which I intended to drain to the lowest practicable point – so low, at least, that no drain running into it should ever be troubled with back-water. Nothing can be more useless than a drain in which water stagnates, choking it with mud. Then I should have bought hundreds of Hemlock or other cheap boards, slit them to a width of four or five inches, and, having opened the needed drains, laid these in the bottom and the tile thereupon, taking care to break joint, by covering the meeting ends of two boards with the middle of a tile. Laying tile in the soft mud of a bog, with nothing beneath to prevent their sinking, is simply throwing away labor and money. I cannot wonder that tile-draining seems to many a humbug, seeing that so many tile are laid so that they can never do any good.

Having, by successive purchases, become owner of fully half of this swamp, and by repeated blunders discovered that making stone drains in a bog, while it is a capital mode of getting rid of the stone, is no way at all to dry the soil, I closed my series of experiments two years since by carefully rëlaying my generally useless tile on good strips of board, sinking them just as deep as I could persuade the water to run off freely, and, instead of allowing them to discharge into a brooklet or open ditch, connecting each with a covered main of four to six-inch tile; these mains discharging into the running brook which drains all my farm and three or four of those above it just where it runs swiftly off from my land. If a thaw or heavy rain swells the brook (as it sometimes will) so that it rises above my outlet aforesaid, the strong current formed by the concentration of the clear contents of so many drains will not allow the muddy water of the brook to back into it so many as three feet at most; and any mud or sediment that may be deposited there will be swept out clean whenever the brook shall have fallen to the drainage level. For this and similar excellent devices, I am indebted to the capital engineering and thorough execution of Messrs. Chickering & Gall, whose work on my place has seldom required mending, and never called for reconstruction.

My Success.– I judge that there are not many tracts more difficult to drain than mine was, considering all the circumstances, except those which are frequently flowed by tides or the waters of some lake, or river. Had I owned the entire swamp, or had there been a fall in the brook just below me, had I had any prior experience in draining, or had others equally interested coöperated in the good work, my task would have been comparatively light. As it was, I made mistakes which increased the cost and postponed the success of my efforts; but this is at length complete. I had seven acres of Indian Corn, one of Corn Fodder, two of Oats, and seven or eight acres of Grass, on my lowland in 1869; and, though the Spring months were quite rainy, and the latter part of Summer rather dry, my crops were all good. I did not see better in Westchester County; and I shall be quite content with as good hereafter. Of my seven hundred bushels of Corn (ears,) I judge that two-thirds would be accounted fit for seed anywhere; my Grass was cut twice, and yielded one large crop and another heavier than the average first crop throughout our State. My drainage will require some care henceforth; but the fifteen acres I have reclaimed from utter uselessness and obstructions are decidedly the best part of my farm, Uplands may be exhausted; these never can be.

The experience of another season (1870) of protracted drouth has fully justified my most sanguine expectations. I had this year four acres of Corn, and as many of Oats, on my swamp, with the residue in Grass; and they were all good. I estimate my first Hay-crop at over two and a half tuns per acre, while the rowen or aftermath barely exceeded half a tun per acre, because of the severity of the drouth, which began in July and lasted till October. My Oats were good, but not remarkably so; and I had 810 bushels of ears of sound, ripe Corn from four acres of drained swamp and two and a half of upland. I estimate my upland Corn at seventy (shelled) bushels, and my lowland at fifty-five (shelled) bushels per acre. Others, doubtless, had more, despite the unpropitious season; but my crop was a fair one, and I am content with it. My upland Corn was heavily manured; my lowland but moderately. There are many to tell you how much I lose by my farming; I only say that, as yet, no one else has lost a farthing by it, and I do not complain.

XI.
DRAINING GENERALLY

Having narrated my own experience in draining with entire unreserve, I here submit the general conclusions to which it has led me:

I. While I doubt that there is any land above water that would not be improved by a good system of underdrains, I am sure that there is a great deal that could not at present be drained to profit. Forests, hill-side pastures, and most dry gravelly or sandy tracts, I place in this category. Perhaps one-third of New-England, half of the Middle States, and three-fourths of the Mississippi Valley, may ultimately be drained with profit.

II. All swamp lands without exception, nearly all clay soils, and a majority of the flat or gently rolling lands of this country, must eventually be drained, if they are to be tilled with the best results. I doubt that there is a garden on earth that would not be (unless it already had been) improved by thorough underdraining.

III. The uses of underdrains are many and diverse. To carry off surplus water, though the most obvious, stands by no means alone. 1. Underdrained land may be plowed and sowed considerably earlier in Spring than undrained soil of like quality. 2. Drained fields lose far less than others of their fertility by washing. 3. They are not so liable to be gullied by sudden thaws or flooding rains. 4. Where a field has been deeply subsoiled, I am confident that it will remain mellow and permeable by roots longer than if undrained. 5. Less water being evaporated from drained than from undrained land, the soil will be warmer throughout the growing season; hence, the crop will be heavier, and will mature earlier. 6. Being more porous and less compact, I think the soil of a drained field retains more moisture in a season of drouth, and its growing plants suffer less therefrom, than if it were undrained. In short, I thoroughly believe in underdraining.

IV. Yet I advise no man to run into debt for draining, as I can imagine a mortgage on a farm so heavy and pressing as to be even a greater nuisance than stagnant water in its soil. Labor and tile are dear with us; I do not expect that either will ever be so cheap here as in England or Belgium. What I would have each farmer in moderate circumstances do is to drain his wettest field next Fall – that is, after finishing his haying and before cutting up his corn – taking care to secure abundant fall to carry off the water in time of flood, and doing his work thoroughly. Having done this, let him subsoil deeply, fertilize amply, till carefully, and watch the result. I think it will soon satisfy him that such draining pays.

V. I do not insist on tile as making the only good drain; but I have had no success with any other. The use of stone, in my opinion, is only justified where the field to be drained abounds in them and no other use can be made of them. To make a good drain with ordinary boulders or cobble-stones requires twice the excavation and involves twice the labor necessarily expended on tile-draining; and it is neither so effective nor so durable. Earth will be carried by water into a stone drain; rats and other vermin will burrow in it and dig (or enlarge) holes thence to the surface; in short, it is not the thing. Better drain with stone where they are a nuisance than not at all; but I predict that you will dig them up after giving them a fair trial and replace them with tile. In a wooded country, where tile were scarce and dear, I should try draining with slabs or cheap boards dressed to a uniform width of six or eight inches, and laid in a ditch dug with banks inclined or sloped to the bottom, so as to form a sort of V; the lower edge of the two side-slabs coming together at the bottom, and a third being laid widely across their upper edges, so as to form a perfect cap or cover. In firm, hard soil, this would prove an efficient drain, and, if well made, would last twenty years. Uniformity of temperature and of moisture would keep the slabs tolerably sound for at least so long; and, if the top of this drain were two feet below the surface, no plowing or trampling over it would harm it.

VI. As to draining by what is called a Mole Plow, which simply makes a waterway through the subsoil at a depth of three feet or thereabout, I have no acquaintance with it but by hearsay. It seems to me morally impossible that drains so made should not be lower at some points than at others, so as to retain their fill of water instead of carrying it rapidly off; and I am sure that plowing, or even carting heavy loads over them, must gradually choke and destroy them. Yet this kind of draining is comparatively so cheap, and may, with a strong team, be effected so rapidly, that I can account for its popularity, especially in prairie regions. Where the subsoil is rocky, it is impracticable; where it is hard-pan, it must be very difficult; where it is loose sand, it cannot endure; but in clays or heavy loams, it may, for a few years, render excellent service. I wish the heavy clays of Vermont, more especially of the Champlain basin, were well furrowed or pierced by even such drains; for I am confident that they would temporarily improve both soil and crop; and, if they soon gave out, they would probably be replaced by others more durable.

– I shall not attempt to give instructions in drain-making; but I urge every novice in the art to procure Waring's or some other work on the subject and study it carefully: then, if he can obtain at a fair price the services of an experienced drainer, hire him to supervise the work. One point only do I insist on – that is, draining into a main rather than an open ditch or brook; for it is difficult in this or any harsher climate to prevent the crumbling of your outlet tile by frost. Below the Potomac or the Arkansas, this may not be apprehended; and there it may be best to have your drains separately discharge from a road-side bank or into an open ditch, as they will thus inhale more air, and so help (in Summer) to warm and moisten the soil above them; but in our climate I believe it better to let your drains discharge into a covered main or mains as aforesaid, than into an open ditch or brook.

Tile and labor are dear with us; I presume labor will remain so. But, in our old States, there are often laborers lacking employment in November and the Winter months; and it is the wisest and truest charity to proffer them pay for work. Some will reject it unless the price be exorbitant; but there are scores of the deserving poor in almost every rural county, who would rather earn a dollar per day than hang around the grog-shops waiting for Spring. Get your tiles when you can, or do not get them at all, but let it be widely known that you have work for those who will do it for the wages you can afford, and you will soon have somebody to earn your money. Having staked out your drains, set these to work at digging them, even though you should not be able to tile them for a year. Cut your outlet deep, and your land will profit by a year of open drains.