of an Experwment on Draining of Land. 425 
profitably be expended in accomplishing this desirable object, is 
by no means ascertained; nor till a few months ago, should I 
have ventured to have estimated its advantages, as I feel myself 
now justified in doing. Arecent occurrence brought this point 
strongly under my observation. 
It may appear strange, that after twenty years assiduous at- 
tention to agriculture, I should not have formed a pretty correct 
estimate of the injury sustained from the want of a proper drain- 
age of spring and surface water on any one crop; but so in truth 
was the case. 
A field of 40 acres on the Schoose farm was last year cropped 
with Swedish turnips; the land was winter fallowed, and in the 
highest state of tillage, so as to admit of the turnips being sown 
in the latter end of April, previous to the long-continued wet, 
which proved so destructive to the turnip crop in the North of 
England: it had 30 tons of good dung per acre. The crop 
averaged on 38 acres, 32 tons and a quarter per acre, that is, 
twenty-six of bulbs, and six and a quarter of tops; the produce 
of two other acres scarcely reached twenty tons. The soil and 
management were the same throughout. It is a strong clay, by 
no means applicable to the growth of turnips; but the farm af- 
forded no other soil more proper for the purpose. These two 
acres had by some means been overlooked when the rest of the 
field had been drained. The injury arose partly from springs, 
and partly from the surface-wet resting upon the land. The 
value of Swedes in common years is 10s. a ton for the bulbs ; 
in the present year they would‘ have sold at i5s. The loss, 
therefore, on 12 ton of bulbs, was eighteen pounds, besides the 
tops, which at 2s. 6d. a ton, would have amounted to 1/. 10s., 
making a total of 19/. 10s. 
Seventy-two roods of drains (seven yards to the rood) were 
immediately cut, the cost of which was 5s. a rood, or 18/. 
Had the drainage been executed previous to putting in the 
crop, it would have been more than paid for by the produce of 
the present year. 
That good often results out of evil, was never more fully ex- 
emplified; and with such a striking instance before me of the 
advantages resulting from completely freeing the land from wa- 
ter, I was powerfully stimulated to undertake the re-drainage of 
a field of eighty acres, adjoining the Schoose, Farm-buildings, 
and within less than half a mile of the town of Workington. 
I was still further excited by the daily and hourly applications 
for labour, arising, I fear, from the decreased and decreasing 
capital of the farmer. 
The scale of labour has annually been declining, which cannot 
but be a matter of deep regret to every friend to the country. 
Vol. 59, No, 290, June 1822. . 3H The 
