HIGH FARMING. 235 



to receive and admit all the rain which may fall upon it. 

 On well-drained land this preparation is always in progress, 

 or at least effectually progresses until it has been effectually 

 attained. Nature has only two ways of drying the surface 

 of retentive lands one, the great atmospheric drain, evapo- 

 ration the other, the drain by vegetation. In winter both 

 these are in abeyance ; and the consequence is, that when 

 such lands at that season become saturated with water, 

 they continue so till those natural drains begin to act again. 

 When rain falls on land in this saturated state there is no 

 admittance ; the house is full, the inmates are three in a 

 bed already ; the vagrant must pass on to some other 

 asylum, and he always takes anything which he can carry 

 away with him. But when such land is well drained, every 

 drop of water which runs out of the drain leaves room for 

 a drop to enter at the surface ; every hour of fair weather 

 prepares for an hour of rain. The vital difference between 

 four-feet drains and two-feet is, that the constant tendency of 

 the former is to have nearly four feet of soil prepared for the 

 reception of rain, whereas the latter can only prepare some- 

 thing less than two feet. Every one knows that the effect 

 of open ditches and of straightened watercourses has been 

 to increase the rapidity with which our floods rise, and to 

 limit their duration, with the concomitant result, that the 

 streams carry down much more mud with them. The effect 

 of general under-draining would be to reverse both these 

 results. Rain falling on soil ready to receive it, and filtered 

 through, would pass off much more equably, and would 

 carry away with it no impurities. With us, the last 

 fortnight of January and the first of February passed with- 

 out downfall. Our drains, on retentive lands, ceased to 

 run. Then came a heavy fall of rain. The ditches of our 

 neighbours on undrained lands ran full and very muddy : 

 our drains ran equably and quite clear water. After four 

 days of light frost our neighbours' ditches ceased to run, 

 but our drains continued for a fortnight, and were running 



