1838] 



F A R Rl E R S ' REGISTER. 



727 



Much has been written a^ninpt hijjh ridires, but 

 not u'ilh iluc couf*!!!*^!-;!!!!)!! ol' their propriety in 

 such laiiils; they liave been applied on dry loams 

 niosi alisurilly; and tioin l.eiuiT perhaps a custom 

 in that |)art of the couutiy, no discriniinatiun has 

 been made; but their beinu!; improper in some ca- 

 ses, and ill-managed in others, aiibrds no just ar- 

 gument against them, when well adapted to tlie 

 soil and wetness ol" climate. * 



They prove of great utility, even when united 

 with either open surface cuts or hollow drains ; a-^ 

 will appiear fi-OHi the lollowini; information trans- 

 nntietl to the Board of Agriculture on this subject. 



Mr. Francis (Jou(k', of Cossington, in Leices- 

 tershire, has united, in this manner, the ridge 

 method and hollow draais in thelurrows, and with 

 a success that renders his account interestinij. 



He observes— "That his soil is sandy on tiie 

 surliice from six to ten inches deep; red clay at the 

 bottom, and m some places gravel, which throws 

 the water upon the surlaceof the land ; which soil 

 he finds not easily drained by cross cuts, but re- 

 quires hollow drains to be made in tlie t'urrows of 

 the ridges, which are made from five to ten yards 

 broad. Their heiirht varies; for summer corn, he 

 raises them six inches, but for winter crops, twelve 

 at the crown, above the bottom of the furrows. 

 The hollow drains are thus dug: in turf groimd, 

 make the drain filteen inches wide and two feet 

 deep, goiuiT down sloping; first take a spade, and 

 cut the turf out; then make use of anotlier tool, 

 made on purpose, something like a cheese-taster; 

 at the head, where the man sets his foot, it is sev- 

 en inches wide, becomimz narrowerdownwards, to 

 the length of sixteen inches, with which he digs 

 out theolhersoil, whether it be sand, gravel, or clay: 

 if clay, he cuts four inches deeper in the middle, 

 at the bottom of the drain, and four inches wide, 

 leaving two inches on each side, or what they call 

 shoulders, to support the turf, which is laid flat 

 upon it, with the grass-side downwards, and then 

 fills it up again. If the land is of a mixed soil, 

 such as sand, gravel, &c.; it is filled with thorns 

 or elm boughs, trampled down, and the turf laid 

 upon them as before, close to the sides of the drain, 

 so that it makes as it were an arch; but where 

 slab, slate, or stone, can be had, it is still firmer. 

 The botiom of the drain is about four inches wide; 

 and workmen have a tool made the same way as 

 a hoe, or in Ibrm of the letter L, with a half-round 

 at the bottom, to scoop out the particles of earth 

 that may remain at the bottom of the drain. How 

 long they will last good is unknown; but he can 

 answer tor fifteen years, and expects them to en- 

 dure a much longer time, even filled with bushes; 

 and the improvement may, upon an average, be 

 estimated at one-fourth increase in the crops." 



The mode of ridging and cross-thoroughing (fur- 

 rowing) land in the Carse of Govvrie, Perthshire, 

 has already been described in Section 5th, Part I, 

 and is applicable and useful in all land ol" a simi- 

 lar description. 



XVI. Drainage of clay soils injured by surface- 

 water. 



The following method of drainiiiiOj clay soils, 

 wet from rain or surliice-water, has been practised 

 by Sir Henry Fleii^hcr, Baronet, a member of tlie, 

 late Board of Agriculture, with great success. 



'I'he upper soil, or that above clay, was from 

 four to ten inches deep, and of good quiility; but 

 being in a mountainous part of the country, and 

 near the sea, a great (juaniity of rain It'll, which 

 always kept the upper soil lull of water, and |)ro- 

 duced a very coarse grass, not worth more than 3s. 

 an acre. Tlie substratum of clay was of very great 

 depth. The mode he first pursued, and which 

 proved too expensive, was the common one of the 

 country ; the drains twenty inches to two i"eet 

 wide and deep, square, and fillet! up promiscuously 

 with quarried stones to within nine inches of the 

 surface. The quantity of stones thus requisite 

 was so great, that the quarrying and distant cart- 

 age came abundantly too high; so that the total 

 expense did not amount to less than 3^d or 4(1 per 

 yard, and by the acre to £10. To lessen so hea- 

 vy an expense, he cliansed the method to that 

 which he has followed lor many years, viz. on 

 (Trass land he digs twenty-two inches, or two leel 

 deep; the first spit is of the turf, taken so deep as 

 where it separates l"rom the clay, which is dug 

 Ciiretully out, and preserved unbroken, grass-side 

 up, and laid on one side of the cut; then, with a 

 very stronar spade, eighteen inches long, six inch- 

 es wide at top, and two at the bottom, he digs a s[)it 

 in the clay, which the men spread about the land, 

 on the side of the drain opposite to where the 

 turis were laid, as lar as possible from the drain, 

 so as none may get in again. A scoop, to clear 

 out the Iragments in the bottom, follows, which 

 are also spread in like manner. They are then 

 ready tor filling; and in doing this, he takes three 

 stones of a thin flat form, two of which are placed 

 against the sides of the drain, meeting at bot- 

 toin; and the third caps the other two, as repre- 

 sented by No. 2, in the plate of sections; thus a 

 hollow triangular space is left io convey the water, 

 which is subject to no accidents that can fill it up, 

 or impede the current. Stones always sink deep- 

 er in the ground; and in the common method, this 

 frequently causes stoppages, by their being partly 

 buried in the clay; but the triangle, when it sub- 

 sides, does it regularly, and keeps its form and pas- 

 sage for the water clear. One cart-load of stones, 

 in this way, will do a considerable length of drain. 

 They are" carefully laid down by the side of the 

 cut with a shovel, or basket; and if there are any 

 small refuse stones left on the ground after the 

 drain is set, they are thrown in above. The stones 

 being thus fixed, the sods are then trimmed to the 

 shap'e of the drain, and laid on them, with the 

 grass-side downwards, and none of the clay used 

 in filling up. 



The expense is a half"-penny per yard, the men 

 earning 2s. and 2s. 6d. per day. * 



* One objection against raising ridges too high is, 

 that the rain falling washes off more easily the fine 

 particles of the soil from the sloping sides of the ridge 

 into the fiu'rows, in which it is carried off the field; 

 and that the seed cannot be so equally disposed in sow- 

 ing, and must be still more unequally scattered and 

 drawn into the furrows by the harrowing: it likewise 

 renders cross-ploughing more diflicult. 



*A man, his wife, and a child of ten yeais old, with 

 a horse and little cart, made very good wages of it. 

 The man used to cut the drains in open weather in 

 winter; in frost be w ought in the quarry; his wife 

 filled the stones and led them to tlie drains, laying 

 them dowi along the sides at proper distances, and the 

 child set tbem in the triangle at bottom. 



