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Show if f: ' !$ "' k - 7 ' t 1 ' pt- ; -, : -- ' t f ' A' '(' J - ,) - s. v, v TV . - , . . ; F !. i . ? 1 TTLE DRAINAGE MACHINE Developed by the below ground surface, where tile is layed and Sumner Margetts Co., Inc. to lay tile for drain- pressured into tight and even fit then covered age, this ingenious machine digs and lays tile with gravel to insure that pipe will not fill for draining water-filled soils. Tile layer is in cage with silt while providing adequate drainage. ENGINEERING FIRM DEVELOPS TILE-LAYER FOR DRAINAGE Land throughout Utah and parts " of Idaho that until a few years ago could not be drained due to unstable un-stable sub-soils are now being reclaimed, re-claimed, according to a civil and consulting engineering firm of Salt Lake City, the Sumner G. Margetts Co., Inc. The firm, in whose general engineering en-gineering activities drainage and irrigation figures prominently, has developed an ingenious system for installing under-drainage tile systems. sys-tems. Typical of such installations is the one presently being installed for John Roundy, Pleasant Grove. This is an area on the northeast shores of Utah Lake, where drainage drain-age has always presented difficult ' problems. Because of a high-water table and quicksands, open trenches tren-ches slough in quickly, making it very dangerous and often impossible impos-sible to lay tile or drainage pipe at the desired depth. Under the Margetts system, a trenching machine excavates the ' trench, lays the tile to exact grade and alignment and provides a four inch gravel envelope completely around the pipe. The machines 12 foot diameter excavating wheel is followed by a stell crib that protects pro-tects the tile layer, who works inside in-side the cage. After the tile is handed to the tile layer, a hydraulic plunger pushes the tile together for perfect fit and alignment. The plunger also al-so "pressure tests" each tile or pipe to insure that it will not break when the trench is backfilled. The purpose of the gravel that envelopes the tile or pipe is to prevent pre-vent fine particles of sand and silt from entering the drain line, to stabilize the soil and to provide additional ad-ditional passage ways for the water wat-er to flow along the pipe until it actually enters the pipe at the joints. By using 3 foot length tile or pipe greater amounts of water enter the tile line and a more rapid de-watering of the ground is accomplished. ac-complished. The machine lays tile or pipe from 6 to 15 inches in diameter at an average rate of 1000 feet per day. Four men are required to do a complete job of draining when using the specially made drainage trencher machine. One man keeps it in line and on grade with no variation whatsoever regardless of undulating ground conditions. A second man hands tile to the tile or pipe man in the cage and the fourth, on a small farm tractor, keeps the gravel chute filled with filter gravel and does backfilling of the trench when the job is complete. com-plete. However, some farm owners own-ers have an additional tractor on the job to do backfilling while the drain job is being done, thus cutting cut-ting down on the total cost. Manholes, or desilting boxes, are usually put in at changes of grade or alignment and at changes of pipe sizes, and in this particular section where quicksand and unstable un-stable soils prediminate the lines are installed after the soils have stabilized. Had it not been for the Margetts organization seeing a need for a machine of this type and working closely with the Soil Conservation Service and the Universities of Utah to develop the machine as it is today, many thousands of acres of our most productive ground would still be waterlogged swamp areas. The Alpine District of Utah County, can well be proud of the farm owners who have completed their tile underdrainage, the Margetts Mar-getts way. The farms owned by the farsighted men in the area are as follows: Rex Blake, Herschel (Continued on page 6) Drainaqe (Continued from page 1) Clinger, A. H. Johnson, Holly and Merrill Maxfield, Boyd Anderson, Anderson and Radmall, Leland Mitchell, Alma Earl, LeRoy Williamson Wil-liamson and the Utah State University Uni-versity Experimental Farm operated oper-ated by Milo Dew. It is hoped that Clair Acord, County Agent, can assist our farmers far-mers who are in need of being Impressed Im-pressed with the value received by proper tile draining. The local Soil Conservation Service and the Alpine Al-pine Soil Conservation District are to be congratulated for the fine job they are doing in their urging the fanri owners to "drain before their land loses its capacity for full production." pro-duction." It is also to be noted that the Drainage-Trenching machine does borrow-pit drainage for communities communi-ties and counties that are plagued with excessive gTound water conditions condi-tions with results that have been most startling. The rapid dewater-ing dewater-ing of the subsoils insures road stability which means greatly reduced re-duced money outlay for both borrow-pit and road maintenance and provides for safer and wider roads together with providing drain outlets out-lets for farm ground lying adjacent adjac-ent to the road rights-of-way. No ether opportunity offers us so much potential profit for so little investment as Tile Underdrainage, properly installed. Frank Bodily and Evan Crawley Craw-ley are the men who make' the machine perform its job as it does and they say "the difficult we do immediately . . . the impossible takes us a little longer," but that the statement used in Northern Utah by the people we have drained drain-ed for is as follows: "Drain More, Gain More" and be progressive. Doug Stewart is the manager of the drainage projects for the Mar-get Mar-get ts Co. |
