Farming of Warwickshire. 



487 



effectually drained, had not an unforeseen obstruction arisen to 

 thwart the whole work. It was found that in the course of a few- 



years a yellow, ochrey matter, common in peat bogs, completely 

 choked the drain, and prevented the auger holes from working.* 

 By this unexpected circumstance the plan of boring, often suc- 

 cessfully practised by him, was for once defeated. The evil is now 

 remedied in the new drains we are about to describe by opening 

 into them holes at intervals of 20 yards, introducing a No. 3 

 wire of proper length, and working through a brush of wire and 

 whalebone ; an operation which has been necessary four or five 

 times in the last thirty years. On the failure of the old drain 

 the present occupier dug the drains which are marked in the 

 plan, and which run into the main ditch at A, B, and C. 

 The peat is 5 or 6 feet deep : below is a subsoil of gravel and 

 sand, and under that a " bind," 1 foot in thickness, consisting 

 of a tough impervious agglomeration of sand, clay, and gravel. 

 To draw off the water it is necessary to pierce this bind, and this- 

 was done by sinking shafts of 14 or 15 feet in depth. They 

 were sunk at spots which, according to the notion of the 

 drainer, would best tap the springs ; on one side of the ditch 

 they occur with some regularity under the hill, on the other they 

 are scattered over the meadow. Tliese shafts were dug 9 feet in 

 diameter, to allow of two men working in them at once, a neces- 

 sity caused by the rapid flow of water. Each shaft was filled 

 with stones to a level of 1 foot above the drain, and through 

 these stones the water rises and pours off into the main outfall, 

 leaving the land perfectly drained. The drains are 4 feet deep 

 at the outfall, and increase to about 8 feet at the shafts. The 

 17-acre meadow which we have described forms the upper por- 

 tion of a So-acre piece ; the lower part is drained mow. ex])en- 



* These auger-holes -worked as well as ever when the laud was redraiued, after 

 a lapse of fifty years. 



