Agriculture of Durham. 123 



with all respect for the Royal Agricultural Society, that I have 

 been as much induced to undertake it, by a desire to set the 

 agriculturists of the county of Durham in a right position before 

 their brother farmers throughout the kingdom, as by any wish to 

 obtain the prize, however great may be the honour of doing so. 

 Gratitude and friendship weigh much with me. My family ^or 

 many (jenerations have been connected with the agriculture of 

 Durham and Northumberland. All that we have had, and all 

 that we now possess of earthly goods, we owe to it — to the kind 

 patronage of the landowners, and the good-feeling and hearty co- 

 operation of the tenants. Take them all together, there does not 

 exist a more honourable and liberal body of proprietors, or a more 

 honest and industrious body of tenantry than prevails in those two 

 counties, and I should not be worthy of the ability to take up a 

 pen, if I did not feel it at once a pleasure and a duty to use it 

 in favour of these, my best friends, so far as the sacred require- 

 ments of truth would allow me. 



V. — On the Composition of the Waters of Land-Drainage and 

 of Rain. By J. Tll0:\rAS Way, Consulting Chemist to the 

 Society. 



I HAVE for some time past been anxious to institute an exa- 

 mination of the waters of land-drainage v/ith the view of ascer- 

 taining whether the advantages derived Avere attended by an inci- 

 dental loss of manuring matter carried off in the drains, and if 

 so, to what extent this loss might occur. Such an examination 

 would seem to follow naturally the inquiries in which I have 

 been heretofore engaged, in respect to the absorptive properties 

 of soils for manure. It is the object of this paper to commu- 

 nicate such results as have up to this time been obtained. As 

 however an inquiry of this kind involves much time and labour, 

 the results now given must be considered as an instalment only, 

 and considerable caution will be needed in their application. I 

 propose to point out the general bearing which tl.ev have ; but 

 it must be left to future inquiry to settle questions of detail. 



The valual)le cfrects of land-drainage are well known, and 

 have been repeatedly exjilaincd ; they are partly physical, partly 

 chemical. The chemical clfects, with which alone we have 

 now to- occupy ourselves, are consequent chiefly upon the free 

 admission of air which follows the removal of water previously 

 filling the interstices of the soil. This air, by virtue of the 

 oxygen it contains, gives rise to the decomjiosition of organic 

 matter, such as tlie decayini; roots of plants, c^t,, or that which 



