58 PRACTICAL GARDENING, 



top, and then covered in with, the whole of the soil, the turf 

 relaid, forming for a time a complete bank along the surface 

 of each drain. The run of water was complete ; the drains 

 ran as freely now as they did when made, some years ago, 

 and the ground seems of an entirely different nature : there is 

 no cracking in hot weather, or softening in wet ; the cattle 

 make no marks, although, as it belongs to a private family, 

 the season for feeding it is very little studied ; and the 

 drainage at two rods apart is sufficient. The men who made 

 the drains sadly remonstrated against our orders for straight 

 drains down the hill : they had been always used to diagonal 

 drains on the side of hills. Common sense, however, ought 

 to inform men that the more rapidly the water runs away, the 

 more room is made for other water to fill the pipes, and that 

 the greater the slope, the more rapid the fall. Some of the 

 most antiquated notions regarding draining prevail in some 

 places. The idea of our ordering tlu-ee-feet-six drains, to 

 which the labourers said it was impossible for the water to 

 sink ! They forgot, or had never considered, that if a pipe 

 was a mile high, and the bottom half-inch cut off, the top 

 half-inch would evidently fall half an inch as well as the bot- 

 tom one ; and so it is in draining. Eun off a two-inch bore 

 full of water from the bottom : it is immediately supplied by 

 the nearest, whose place is filled by the next, and so on. The 

 top must follow, and fiU up the vacuum formed by the absence 

 of any below ; so that the effect is more instantaneous than 

 many people imagine. Again, water mU fall much more 

 rapidly than it ^vill travel sideways. If, then, a di-ain is made 

 near the surface, it has very Httle to receive from above, and 

 it can only take beyond this some of the side water in its 

 immediate vicinity ; but if drainage be deep, aU immediately 

 above falls perpendicularly, while right and left it comes in 

 a sloping direction from a distance commensurate mth the 

 depth it has to come. 



Many fall into an error which cannot be too speedily got 

 rid of — that, if ground is on a hill, there can be no good in 

 artificial draining, because there is a natural drainage. No- 

 thing can be more erroneous than this opinion. Springs rise, 

 on the side, and often on the top, or near the top, of a hill, 

 and form swamps where you would think it almost impossible 

 to retain water ; and there is, in fact, no getting rid of it 

 without properly draining it. Xor is it enough to make 



