Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 21, 1885

IN the year 1850 Congress passed an act to enable the State of Arkansas and other States to " reclaim their swamp and overflowed land," providing where each subdivision of t forty was more than one-half over- flowed or swamp land in the meaning of the act. In June, 1852, the State gave these lands to the respective counties in which they were located. The law required the proceeds arising from the sale of these lands should be first expended in draining these lands in so far as it might be found necessary in making them arable. Upon a careful survey of the lands there was found to be 38,000 acres of swamp land belonging to the county, mostly along the valley of Green River and in the bottoms of the Illinois River. The county concluded to sell the land at public sale - ten per cent cash and the remainder on long time. The sale, in September, 1856, amounted to $115,000, and the Board decided to appropriate the money to the school fund. A contention at once arose on the part of the purchasers, they contending that the purchase money should be exclusively used in draining the lands. They refused to meet their back payments, and soon the county was not only in a law suit, but in a general wrangle on the subject. In May, 1856, the Supervisors had appointed a committee to examine the subject and report generally what should be done. The committee reported that the title of the county to these lands was unconditional; that it could sell, and use the money as it saw proper and its acts could not be questioned. The Legislature, it said, had incorporated the Winebago Drainage Company, which company intended to grab the lands of Bureau and other counties without paying any equivalent therefor; this would be done under the pretext of draining Ihe county and improving the general health of the people; that the small minority in the lobby at Springfield from Bureau County, had been bitterly denounced by the "drainage lobby " - that this drainage act meant to drain the peoples' money from their pockets more than to take off the water; that many of the tracts of reported swamp lands were already contracted for, and this would materially affect the sale of others; that Lee and Whiteside Counties having sold their lands were using their influence to have the State drain the Winnebago swamps at the expense of the lands_benefitted. And that as long as the lands remained unsold that they may be wrested (gobbled) from the county; that many of the lands are partly covered with timber and are being stripped by timber thieves, etc. This report was jjpwerful in influencing the action of the Board in hurrying up the sale above mentioned.

In January, 1862, the Board took up the matter to unravel it once more, and another committee was appointed. It reported and went over in detail the law and the terms on which the lands were given to the county; that much trouble and vexation had arisen by selling the land and making the great mistake of not applying the proceeds to drainage purposes as the act contemplated, etc. Thereupon the following resolution was passed:

Resolved, That the Board of Supervisors will scrupulously apply the proceeds of the swamp lands of the county exclusively, so far as necessary, to draining and reclaiming the same. About one-half of the lands sold were paid for and deeds taken, while the remainder was forfeited and reverted to the county, and were again sold. The total of the sales amounted to $227,761. The county commenced an extensive system of drainage along the Green River country and expended here about $200,- 000. And the finest cornfields in the county are now upon lands along Green River, over which a steamboat could pass in former times.

without this improvement, have remained a great water waste for centuries. The law was a wise one, wherein it provided the gift should be turned to the general good. It was at this time that drainage received its first impetus in Illinois. The improvement in the surface drainage resulting from the first settlement of the country, and weakening the strength of the original strong prairie sod, had failed to impress the average farmer of the inviting possibilities in the marshy, swampy, wet lands that were so common all over the Illinois prairies, and the ponds, and lagoons along many of the streams. And since that day drainage has rapidly grown, and is now recognized as one of the most valuable permanent improvements that can be put upon the land. And from surface drainage has come the knowledge and now wide use of tile drainage, and this is found to be attended with the greatest benefits even to the uplands. It strengthens the soil, creates it, and warms it to that extent that it visibly affects the early spring vegetation. It is of the greatest value for the rain that falls upon the ground to pass off by going through soil instead of running off on the surface. Water always carries a certain portion of air wherever it goes, and from the air and the water is extracted rich plant food, and the trickling of the water makes many air openings, and here is carried both the early warmth of spring as well as the nutrition for plants, and in addition to all this is the advantage of preventing water from standing a long time on the surface, and excluding the air and killing the natural strength of the land, which stagnant or still waters will do, while moving water will not, at least not so rapidly. Opening the soil for the admission of air is one of the principal objects of plowing, harrowing and otherwise breaking up and disintegrating the earth's surface. The presence of air in the soil in as large aggregate quantities as possible is indispensable, because it brings with it carbonic acid and ammonical gases, which reach the minute roots or spongioles of plants. Air also supplies the oxygen necessary to the decomposition of vegetable matter, which in turn becomes what may be termed the food of plants. Aeration of soils cannot be accomplished by opening holes in the ground or breaking the earth into large lumps and clods, but the air should be admitted in many minute streams or channels, in order that each particle of soil may come in contact with a particle of air.

Plowing, hoeing and weeding growing crops are aerating processes well understood by the scientific agriculturist who never neglects them, even when no weeds are present; for experience has taught him that luxuriant growth will be promoted and often sustained by aeration, whether the season be wet or dry. Heavy, stiff clays become beaten down and hard during the heavy rains of spring, and then porosity is almost entirely destroyed, as neither air nor moisture can enter except very slowly, if at all ; but when they are broken up and pulverized, aeration proceeds with rapidity and regularity. Air not only enters loose soils direct, but also with water, and whenever the soil is in such a condition as to admit water rapidly, we may conclude that aeration is also going on. Water, however, should not rest in the soil, but circulate; first by descent as a liquid, and then by ascent in the form of vapor, thereby assisting aeration as well as carrying the fertilizing elements of the soil to the roots of plants growing therein. Water exposed to the atmosphere, even by passing through it in the form of rain, absorbs atmospheric gases in sufficient quantities to be perceived by the human palate. These are

Experience has fully demonstrated that the wet land, land that has produced only coarse, woody swamp grasses can readily be converted into the richest agricultural lands by tiling. The experiment is now common all over central and northern Illinois, that by thorough tiling the value of lands, worth $30 and $40 an acre, have been more than doubled by drainage, and unlike any other improvement, when properly done, it is a permanent benefit, needing only the slightest future attention in order to carry on its great work perpetually; fires, tornadoes, nor time affect its good work. Hence, it is recognized as the most important farm work yet undertaken by all intelligent farmers. The cautious farmers a few years ago, who reasoned themselves into the first experiments, would sometimes select a piece of ground and tile one-half of it and observe the results. When the entire field was planted in corn and the plants were half grown, he could stand off at a distance and easily tell the boundary of the tiling by the appearance of the growing corn. And even in the spring plowing many testify that in plowing across the fields that were partly tiled they could tell by the pulling of the horses the moment the plow came into the tiled ground. One would be clammy and heavy and the other loose and light. But these things are now too well known to all intelligent farmers to need recapitulation here. We have no doubt that the time will soon come when every acre of our agricultural lands, except on our steepest hills, will be all thoroughly tiled. Its value has ceased to be experimental - its increase of the certainty and amount of crops each year are now matters universally known.

especially the efforts to enact laws that would best promote its universal use, and at the same time inflict the least wrong upon the rights of adjoining lands, is quite an interesting and important subject, and what is remarkable in the enacting of laws to fit this new condition of affairs there was nearly the same legal points and obstruction thrown in the way that there was in the anti-monopolymovement, spoken of elsewhere, and the further fact that here as there the lawyers and the courts were largely on one side, and the people on the other. The lawyers following the bent of their education appealed to ancient precedent and law for the solution of the most modern of practical questions; laws that were made and had applications to the old subject of building dams and digging drains, where there was only the one principle to consider, namely, the injury that might result to others' property. Upon these points the English law was full of " wise saws " and learned decisions, and when our people commenced to place tiling in their grounds, they at once began to see that they must have an outlet; that their drains must be laid according to the shape and lay of the surface, and that very often the only possible manner of doing the work was to throw the water upon their neighbor's land, and according to the law, of this the neighbor might complain, and the law would give him redress. If each land owner had for neighbors men of equal enterprise, then there would be little difficulty, because they would extend and carry along their neighbor's drain and there would be nothing to adjust. But this is not human nature. There were plenty of course who would not drain their own land and much less allow their neighbors to increase the flow of water upon them. The Legislature was appealed to, but the attorneys said this remedy could not be afforded by law. Senator L. D. Whiting, of this county, now so long a member of the State Senate that he is called the " father of the Senate," has furnished us an interesting account of the long struggle there has been on this subject, the years of failure by the farmers and the final triumph that has only now come to those who have sought to adjust the law to this modern necessity. The constitutional convention of 1870, he informs us, upon his motion, took up the subject and, while it did not pass a provision at all broad enough in his opinion, yet it was a provision intended to enable the Legislature to do something for the public relief. The enemies of drainage regarded the little provision in the constitu tion - a provision that Mr. Whiting told the gentlemen who drafted it, "was too small a provision for so great a subject " - and they therefore allowed it to be inserted in the new constitution. The Legislature soon undertook to pass laws giving force and effect to this provision, but all the prominent attorneys of the State who were consulted said that under it nothing practical could be enacted by the Legislature that would afford relief, and at the same time stand the tests of the court. Mr. W. tells us he reported measures that were smothered in the judiciary committee, as they treated all measures unless they carefully looked over them and first ' ' extracted all their teeth.' ' The Legislature passed acts, but, as he informs us, he finally got a declaratory law, or provision under the drainage act, partially smuggled through the two houses, by sandwiching it all in a measure purporting to be about something else, and it thus became a law. But here again the attorneys and the courts were of one voice, and there was apparently 110 hope of relief. A case arose in the county and a short account of it will be a general history of what was being done generally. One man drained his land by tiling a low, marshy part thereof, and he run his drain for an outlet to the public road, and ended it in a culvert in the road. When the rains came his neighbor discovered that this tile materially increased the flow of water on to his land, and he commenced suit. A jury of farmers heard all the facts of the case, and decided there was no damage for which the upper farmer should pay. The case went to the appellate court and was reversed and sent back for a" new trial. Again upon trial and appeal the same results came, and the appellate court sent back instructions that the law must be enforced, that the act was a trespass. Here was nearly the same conflict of opinion between the people on one side, and the attorneys of the country on the other side, as was the case in the contest with the railroads in regard to "vested rights," when the lawyers claimed the Legislature could not give relief. Many intelligent men realized that the whole theory must be changed; that even if the lawyers had the proper views of what the old law was on the subject, that the surroundings here in the great State of Illinois were superior, far above old precedents, and that it was not only good sense and sound policy, but an imperative necessity to re-enact the law on this point^ and make it possible to put into practical effect this great and needed work in Illinois.

Just now we are informed that the Superior Court of our State has reversed its former rulings, has been compelled to lay aside precedent and decide that the superior public interest, justice to the many, and common sense, are the law; that a man may drain bis land, may carry the water the natural way for it to run, and deliver it at his boundary- line, and the owner of the adjoining land must take care of it and pass it along in the form and manner he may choose. This is a great victory of justice, of good sense, of necessity, over the learned in the technicalities of the law, and it is a plain proposition that it will give a tremendous impulse to tile draining in the State, and will add many millions to the value of Illinois farms. Could anything be plainer than the proposition, that if our farmer wants to drain his land, he may do it; that his hands should not be tied by a stubborn neighbor; that he may do this with the least damage to adjoining land, but that he may do it completely, and if his act compels the stubborn neighbor to improve his land by putting down tile, that all are benefited in the end? The law may well step in and compel the stubborn neighbor to benefit himself; but formerly, the very measure he could successfully resist was not only an injury to his more enterprising neighbor, but to himself also, so long as he sat sullenly upon his supposed rights under the old construction of the law.

Here, then, is another important revolution in the old, musty and obsolete laws of the past, and in favor of the present; adjusting the machinery of the law to the needs of the present. The old struggle of the people against ttie oppression of laws and customs that are old and whose days of usefulness passed away long ago, laws or customs that probably had their beginning in the greatest good to the people, but which have long outlived their usefulness. Not only their good, but by the general change of circumstances these measures that were once a public blessing have become a public and grievous oppression, a common experience in the history of civilization.

in Bureau County. It is a proud achievement. Its effects will be only for good, and they will extend, like the other great movements born here, throughout the country, bearing perpetual fruits and blessings to the great human family.