DRAINAGE. 115 



avoided, by a 4-feet than by a 2-feet drainage. The latter 

 can only prepare 2 feet of soil for the reception and 

 retention of rain, which 2 feet, being saturated, will reject 

 more, and the surplus must run off the surface, carrying 

 whatever it can find with it. A 4-feet drainage will be 

 constantly tending to have 4 feet of soil ready for the 

 reception of rain, and it will take much more rain to 

 saturate 4 feet than 2. Moreover, as a gimlet-hole bored 

 4 feet from the surface of a barrel filled with water will 

 discharge much more in a given time than a similar hole 

 bored at the depth of 2 feet, so will a 4-feet drain dis 

 charge in a given time much more water than a drain of 

 2 feet. One is acted on by a 4-feet, and the other by a 

 2-feet, pressure. 



We have something to say on the score of authority. 

 The late Sir Robert Peel was a great drainer. He began 

 shallow, was disappointed at the results, and adopted deep 

 draining. He began with miscellaneous conduits but 

 settled into pipes and collars. Within the last six or 

 seven years of his life, Sir Robert Peel drained 2000 acres in 

 the counties of Warwick, Stafford, and Lancaster a por- 

 tion (perhaps considerable) on the requisition of tenants. 

 Reports were industriously circulated, by speech and writing, 

 that Sir Robert was dissatisfied with the results of his deep 

 draining, in consequence of which a letter was addressed to 

 him, to which he gave a prompt reply. He laid his cor- 

 respondent under no restrictions as to the use of that 

 reply, and it has been kindly communicated to us. We 

 extract the following sentences : 



" It is utterly untrue that I am dissatisfied with the 

 experiment of deep draining. I have had many prejudices 

 to contend against; the purely stupid ones against any 

 novelty any innovation on the old system of agriculture ; 

 those, too, prompted by self-interested jealousy of the new 



machinery which innovation renders necessary 



I have permitted some drains to be laid at less than 4 feet, 

 partly to humour tenants, on strong clays, who wished to 



