74 AGRICULTURE. 



" Herein," says the writer, who dates from Paine's End, the 

 16th of Nov., 1583, " is taught, even for the capacity of the 

 meanest, how to drain moores, and all other wet grounds 

 or bogges, and lay them dry for ever." The draining for 

 wet grounds is of a shallow order, and is illustrated by a 

 herring-bone pattern. The main drain is to be filled with 

 stones ; but our capacity is certainly too mean to understand 

 how an open course for the water is to be maintained in 

 the lateral drains, or " slope drayners," as the writer calls 

 them. The directions for executing them are as follows : 

 " Dig them one foote deepe at the least, and one foote 

 broade in the bottome, and not above two inches broade at 

 the top, so will the top close up againe and the bottome 

 will be hollow," " so shall you lose no ground. The charges 

 for ten acres is 26s. Sd., besides carriages, which charges, 

 the earth which you ca*rt out of the ditch and drayners, 

 being wel spread, wil countervail for the manuring of the 

 ground." The directions "To draine Bogs" contain all we 

 know at the present day, or nearly so, with the exception 

 of the use of the boring-rod. 



Our researches into agricultural literature have brought 

 us acquainted with Walter Blith, " a Lover of Ingenuity," 

 and Andrew Yarranton. Like other writers on husbandry, 

 both published at a time of great agricultural depression. 

 The former, about 1640, in " The English Improver," " dis- 

 covered to the kingdome that some land, both arable and 

 pasture, may be advanced double or treble," other five or 

 ten, some twenty fold, &c., &c. The latter, in 1677, in 

 " England's Improvement by Sea and Land," taught his 

 countrymen to " outdo the Dutch without fighting, to pay 

 debts without moneys, to set at work all the poor of England 

 with the growth of our own land," and many other things. 

 We have but a few words with him, for, though he does not 

 entirely overlook draining, he says nothing on it to our 

 purpose. His grand remedies are 1st. To lower the rate 

 of interest to landowners by means of a registry of.deeds. 

 This, according to him, would enable them to take a cer- 



