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proved," whicli contains many useful hints. His plans for draining 

 swamps and meadows are, even at the present day, deserving of atten- 

 tion. He says your draining trench must be so formed that it go to 

 the bottom of the cold, spewey, moist water, that feeds the flag and the 

 rush : " yea, should the corruption that feeds it, be a yard or four feet 

 deep, to the bottom thou must go." 



Captain Bligh gave a good description of covered drains; he says 

 they are more expensive than open drains, but more capacious and du- 

 rable, and he recommends to have them filled with good faggots of 

 elm, willow, alder or thorn, and in firm ground with pebbles or flint 

 stones, " and thus," he says, '• fill the bottoms of the trenches about fif- 

 teen inches deep, and take the turf and plant it as aforesaid, with the 

 green side downwards, being made fit for the trench, so that it viay 

 join close when laid down." These directions are carefully observed 

 by the best drainers of the present day, but a smaller depth of stones 

 has been found to answer. Captain Bligh's system was adopted in sev- 

 eral parts of England, but on a scale so limited, that on its revival by 

 Mr. Smith, of Deanston, it has been claimed as a discovery, and the 

 honors due to the ancient inventor, have been carried away by the 

 modern improver. 



There can be no doubt but that Mr. Smith carried the system to a 

 very high degree of perfection, and has been the means of improving 

 the science of draining. 



Mr. Pusey, writing in 1842, seven years after the Deanston system 

 had been promulgated, says, he knows the system has been long prac- 

 ticed in England to its fullest extent, especially in Suflblk and Essex. 

 In proving that Mr. Smith's system is not new, he says he does not 

 "want to lower that gentleman's claim to our thanks, for he probably in- 

 Tented it also, or at all events carried it out with an energy which made 

 it new in his hands ; but he thinks that the fact of its previous practice 

 in Sufiblk and Essex, is worthy of notice for two reasons : first, that 

 any new method however highly recommended, should be received 

 with caution so long as it is new, and consequently that the best praise 

 by which any system can be recommended is, not that it is neio, but 

 that it is old and tried. The other reason is, that here was a plan 

 which was regarded as novel, yet had been established and employed 

 for more than a century, at no great distance from London, and this is 



