170 Progress of Agricnltvrnl Kvowlechjp 



England. I do not speak of furrow-draining, which was well 

 known in many districts, for the drains were not generally so deep 

 nor so numerous as they are on the Deanston system. But an old 

 drill-man from Suffolk having observed to me, that if he were 

 the tenant of a strong clay farm in this neighbourhood, he 

 should drain the whole of it with drains cut 12 feet apart and 

 3 feet in depth, I was struck with this remark of an old man 

 who had never read the new system of drainage, yet described it 

 as carried to its utmost extent, for drains could scarcely be cut 

 nearer or deeper. He told me, on being further questioned, that 

 it was the method which he had seen as a boy at his native place. 

 Mr. Allan Ransome, at my request, inquired into the matter, and 

 informs me that forty years ago three properties, one of them 

 Lord Huntingfield's, near Yoxford, in Suffolk, were drained 

 in this manner. I have reason to believe that the same effectual 

 mode of draining has long been practised in Essex, so much so 

 as" to be called the Essex system even in Scotland. Now, in 

 proving that Mr. Smith's system is not new, I do not lower his 

 claims to our thanks, for he probably invented it also, and at 

 all events carried it out with an energy which made it new in 

 his hands; but I think the fact of its previous practice in Suffolk 

 and Essex worth notice for two reasons : one, that any new 

 method, however highly recommended, must be received with 

 doubt as long as it continues new, and that consequently the best 

 praise by which any method can be recommended to practical 

 farmers is, not that it is new, but on the contrary that it is old 

 and tried ; the other reason is this, that here was a plan of drain- 

 age which was regarded as novel, yet had been employed and esta- 

 blished for half a century at no great distance from London ; 

 and this is by no means a singular proof how little the farmers 

 in one part of England knew, until lately, what the others were 

 doing. 



All, however, who are at all acquainted with improved 

 husbandry are now agreed that on wet land thorough-drain- 

 ing is to a farm what a foundation is to a house. There is no 

 doubt now what ought to be done ; the difficulty is to find 

 means for doing it, since one-third of England, I believe, re- 

 quires to be drained. It would be easy to bring forward in- 

 stances of great profit resulting from drainage ; and I may refer 

 to the accounts of Sir James Graham's operations at Netherby,'"^' 

 and of Lord Hatherton'sf at Teddesley, where the water which 

 gushes out of the underground drains is thrown over a water-wheel, 

 threshes the corn, and does the other work of the barn ; still great 

 returns cannot be held out in all cases, yet every wet farm ought to 

 be drained. But the advantage of draining is not to be measured 



* Journal, vol. i. p. 32. 

 t Ibid., vol. ii. p. 273, on the Drainage of Land : by J. F. Burke. 



