DRAIN TILE : ITS MANUFACTURE AND USE.* The subject assigned me may be considered by some as for eign to the line of thought laid out bY the convention proper, but as many of us are acting in a dual capacity, tile makers and brickmakers, and to others perhaps who do not fully know the use of drain tile, an idea might be dropped that would engender new thought which would be beneficial.
Drain tile, which is absorbing at the present time a large amount of labor and capital, especially in the Western states, had its origin most marked in the first century of the Christian era. Calumella, a Roman contemporary with the philosopher Seneca, in the reign of Nero, treats at length and with fullness, not inelegantly, of the cultivation of all kinds of grain, garden vegetables, trees, the vine, olive and other fruits. He gives directions for selecting farms, the management of servants and slaves. He himself lived in Rome most of the time, but owned a small villa and farm in the country. He advanced the idea of loosening the soil in various ways—by cultivation, and to quote his words, he says, "For to cultivate is no other thing but to loosen and ferment the earth ; therefore the same land which is both fat and loose and crumbling yields the greatest profit, because at the time it yields the most it requires the least." He speaks of the different kinds of soil, whether it be woody, stony or marshy land, covered with rushes, fern plants or shrubs.
He says if it be wet let the abundance of moisture be first drained or dried up by ditches—of these we have known two kinds, blind and open. Then he describes the manner in which the blind ditches were made with stone and clean gravel, but if these were not obtainable to make bundles of brush tied together, on which were laid boughs, over which the earth was thrown, leaving the ends open for the free passage of water both in and out. Thus we can see that they had some knowl edge of the benefit of under-drainage as far back as the begin ning of the Christian era, and I have helped make the same kind of a ditch in Maine, my native state, in my boyhood days, and it worked well. We have no knowledge that the Romans
used drain tile for draining land, but the same author speaks of the use of earthen pipe to convey water to cisterns as fol lows : "But if these also fail you, and the small hopes of spring water force you, let large cisterns be built for men, and ponds for cattle, for gathering and keeping rain water, which is most proper and suitable for the health of the body, and this you may have exceedingly good if you convey it in earthen pipes into a covered cistern." I infer from the foregoing that earthen pipes were on the market, and doubtless cheap, for we have no information that would lead us to believe that the tariff was heavy on these pipes, or that strikes were frequent. So far as we know this is the oldest reference to under-drains for agricultural purposes. There is plenty of evidence that stone, which was common to the country, and brick also, were used in construction of sewers in cities centuries before the time of Columella, and perhaps earthen pipes may have been used for the same purpose ; but we have knowledge of the making of brick with and without straw as far back as the tower of Babel, over 4,000 years ago, and this, allow me to suggest, was the first strike that ever occurred on a building or a brick yard.
Drain tile at the present time are usually made round, one foot in length and of all sizes from three to eighteen inches in clusive.
In the past, not many years ago, they were made horse-shoe shaped, with and without bottoms, also V-shaped with the open side down, and perhaps other shapes, but at present the round tile for convenience of manufacture and use supersedes all other shapes. They are manufactured by machinery made in this country, which is unsurpassed ; moulded and dried on slatted floors or shelves and usually burned in close kilns, after which they are ready for use.