HEDGES. THOROUGH DRAINAGE. ]79 



should add that the farmers seem to set much value upon the 

 shelter from cold winds which the hedges afford. 



Drainage. The need of thorough draining is nowhere so 

 obvious as upon clay soils with stiff sub-soils. There will 

 be but a few weeks in a year when such soils are not too wet 

 and mortary, or too dry and bricky, to be ploughed or tilled 

 in any way to advantage. In the spring, it is difficult to cart 

 over them, and in the summer, if the heat is severe and long- 

 continued, without copious rain, the crops upon them actually 

 dwindle and suffer more than upon the driest sandy loams. 

 To get rid of the surface water, the greater part of the culti 

 vated land of Cheshire (and, I may add, of all the heavy land 

 of England) was, ages ago, ploughed into beds or &quot; butts&quot; 

 ( bouts). These are comr.iouly from five to seven yards 

 wide, with a rise, from the furrows (called the &quot; reins&quot;) to the 

 crown, of three or four inches in a yard. The course of the 

 butts is with the slope of the ground ; a cross butt and rein, 

 or a wide, open ditch by the side of the hedge, at the foot of 

 the field, conducting off the water which has collected from 

 its whole surface. When the land is broken up for tillage, 

 and often even after thorough under-drainage, these butts are 

 still sacredly regarded and preserved. 



Thorough under-draining, by which all the water is col 

 lected after filtering through the soil to some depth, was 

 introduced here as an agricultural improvement within the 

 last eight years. The great profit of the process upon the 

 stiff soil was so manifest that it was very soon generally fol 

 lowed. The landlords commonly furnished their tenants 

 with tile for the purpose, and the latter very willingly ware 

 at the expense of digging the drains and laying them. W ish- 

 ing, however, to do their share of the improvement at the 

 least cost, the tenants have been too often accustomed to 

 make the drains in a very inefficient manner, being guided as 



