460 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPEDIA. 



are likely to ramify. When we endeavonr to ascertain what it actually 

 does, it becomes obvious that it is an improvement which, if properly car- 

 ried out, will both prevent evil from being done to the soil, and prove a 

 carrier of fertilizing substances into it, through the instrumentality of rain 

 water and atmospheric air. 



COMMENCING DRAINAGE WORKS. 



As a preliminary to its being brought into a maximum state of fertility, 

 every kind of bibulous soil requires to be thoroughly drained ; and, with 

 clays, drainage is, in all cases, an absolute necessity. Even on soils that 

 are comparatively porous, great errors have been committed in forming 

 drains at too wide intervals ; and, in heavy land, the mistake, if fallen in- 

 to, is immensely greater. For the sake of an ill-judged economy, we are, 

 in many cases, tempted to put in drains at great distances apart, believing 

 that depth will compensate for width. Than this, there can be no greater 

 mistake ; and, however carefully it should be avoided in soils of medium 

 quality, it ought to be still more so in strong clays. So great is the af- 

 finity for water evinced by heavy land, that it requires the drains to be 

 placed at very frequent intervals, in order to its being made sufficiently 

 dry, and capable of being profitably cultivated, The depth of the drains, 

 on such soils, is a matter of less consequence than their distance apart ; 

 but there are, notwithstanding, various theoretical considerations which 

 go to prove the value of deep over shallow drainage, even in the strongest 

 clays. In a dense, unctuous soil, the pores and interstitial canals are of 

 much smaller sectional area than those of light land ; and hence, in the 

 former, a greater perpendicular weight of water is necessary to overcome 

 capillary resistance, than is required in the latter. 



I have said, that so bibulous are ordinary clays, that it is only by 

 drains placed very closely together, that completely effective drainage can 

 be secured. I do not refer to the clay of any particular geological forma- 

 tion, but to all heavy land containing more than 30 per cent, of pure clay, 

 so called, and less than 5 per cent, of lime. Any one acquainted with the 

 drainage systems which have been adopted in past years must be satisfied 

 that a very small part of the strong clays that have been drained, have, in 

 reality, been effectively dried. They have, in too many instances, been 

 brought into that tough, soured state that half-drained, heavy land as 

 sumes ; and are, therefore, not only ill to work, but when under green 

 crops, are, in wet seasons, far from being so productive as they ought to be. 

 But this is an evil that may surely be avoided; and, though the cost of 



