66 A FARMER'S YEAR 



field to the other, the water does not flow the whole length of them, 

 but does flow to the top or bottom ditch, according to the side of 

 the watershed upon which it is collected in the soil. Now this 

 and many other facts have to be mastered and borne in mind by 

 the man who draws the drains ; above all he has to know the exact 

 slope of the various falls and the best spots for the outlets of 

 the water. Further, he must make no mistake, or much money 

 and labour may be wasted ; and the curious part of it is that he 

 does not make any mistake, at least in my experience I have 

 never known him to do so. By * him ' I may explain that I mean 

 the ordinary ploughman who is set to draw the drains, not an 

 expert employed for that purpose. Theoretically, and perhaps 

 actually, he is provided with a spirit-level, but I do not think that 

 he often uses that instrument. 



It may be asked, then, how he accomplishes his task ; to 

 which I answer that I do not know, for nothing is more difficult 

 than to get a clear explanation of anything to do with their art 

 from men of this stamp. I conclude, however, that on a difficult 

 field the thing is done partly by eye and partly by watching the 

 natural trickle of the water, but most of all by tradition. Very 

 likely the man has drawn the drains before, perhaps several times 

 upon this very field ; or if he has not, his father has, or, failing 

 him, someone else about the place. 



In this country, where such labourers as remain on the land 

 are practically adscripti gleba, there are always men who know the 

 history of a particular field for the last one or two generations. Thus, 

 when I was draining the eight-acre, No. 2, here, with tile drains 

 before it was laid down to permanent pasture, I remember some 

 old pipes, of the sort that were used many years ago, measuring 

 about an inch and a half in diameter, being turned up by the 

 drainers, filled, each of them, with a core of stiff clay. An old 

 man was standing beside me watching the operations. ' Ah ! ' he 

 said, addressing the pipe, ' I remimber a-carrying of yow when I 

 wore a lad more nor seventy yir ago.' It transpired afterwards 

 that in this remote period the old gentleman had been employed to 



