Farming of Bedfordshire. 5- 



so that the subsoil, a little below where the ploug;!! penetrates, 

 has become (through the absence of atmospheric influence for so 

 long a time) intractable pretty much in the form oi these " lands." 

 Any sudden attempt to produce an entirely even surface 

 could scarcely fail to be succeeded by injury to the crops for 

 some years subsequent. It is not surprising, therefore, that 

 farmers have not agreed upon any general or uniform mode of 

 undei'draining these lands. Some prefer taking the dizain down 

 the old furrow, which is always (though irregularly) lower than 

 any other part of the land. But others, because of the great 

 inequality in the size of the lands, prefer to place their drains 

 at regular intervals, irrespective altogether of the old lands and 

 about 4 feet deep. Two or three of the principal estates of the 

 county are drained, mainlv, I believe, in this method ; and wherever 

 the subsoil is sufficiently porous the end is answered and a 

 tolerably perfect drainage effected. On the other hand, where 

 these drains pass, as they often do, through impervious beds of 

 gault, they fail, as might be expected, to draw the water from 

 the parts of these old lands that lay lower before drainage, and 

 sometimes serious damage ensues. Therefore it is the more 

 popular practice among many farmers to drain down the old fur- 

 rows at a depth sufficient to save the pipes from all chance of 

 damage, thereby adopting as their principle the consideration 

 that the surface-water percolates through cultivated soil to the 

 lowest point more freely than through that which is more im- 

 pervious.* I contend, therefore, that on all such lands the drain, 

 when it can be accomplished, should be found in those places 

 where the surface is lowest. These observations are intended 

 to apply particularly to the very tenacious soils of the county 



* In other words, their idea of drainage is, according to the author, confined 

 to the production of a dry face upon ridges •weeping their surface-wet sidcuxiys 

 thro'ijh the cultirated soil into the adjacent furrmcs (ilhistrated in the soaking of 

 rain down the sides of an umbrella, whose top will be dry while the sides are still 

 saturated;. It hardly needed any new discovery that water percolates more freely 

 through a soil than through a clay subsoil, to get back to that long-exploded 

 theory of drainage, which is costing rc-drainage on so many estates. 



It is quite true, as the author states, that old ridges must be reduced very gra- 

 dually, with a care and judgment that every experienced farmer will know 

 liow to apply. Bat this, which is one truth, does not invalidate another truth — that 

 the object of agricultural drainage is to relieve the soil by draining the cold and 

 indurated subsoil; effecting by degrees the direct imder-absorption o{ yf'dter to the 

 drains, instead of its lateral soakaifc to the fiorows. 



Experience has shown that lateral soakage, inevitably implying as it does an 

 unequal distribution of moisture on the surface, is an evil gradually superseded by 

 the deep drain, a process involving time on land of this well-known descrip- 

 tion in the midland counties. But it is precisely for this reason the more im- 

 portant that the true end and aim of drainage should be steadily and patiently kept 

 in view by those who have high-backed ridges to contend with ; indicating as 

 they do the greatest local need of drainage, and its worst example to the eye. 

 —Ed. 



