80 ON DRAINING. 



the surface-turf tlie best tp be put in first; but tbe peat 

 being" indestructible, and not liable to be acted upon by the 

 atmosphere or the water, was much superior for that pur- 

 pose. Another great advantage of this mode of improving* 

 the land was, that peat land could be completely drained for 

 11. an acre, which was cheaper than he had ever known land 

 drained before. 



Agricultural Gazette, Sept. 19, 18-16. 



Art. XXVI.— on DRAINING. 



By Josiah Parkes, Esa., Consulting Engineer to the Royal 

 Agricultural Society. 



[The followrag abridged account is from a valuable paper read by Mr. 

 Parkes before the R. A. Society at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Mr. Parkes is 

 well known as a warm and talented advocate for deep draining. In his in- 

 troductory remarks, he quotes the work of Captain Walter Bligh, of which 

 a third edition was published in 1G52 — no slight proof, at tliat period, of 

 the popularity of the book — in wliich the advantages and theory of deep 

 drainage are enforced and explained witli remarkable clearness and pre- 

 cision. Mr. Parkes justly gives credit to the sagacity of Bligh for drawing 

 attention to the very imjiortant practical difference between the transient 

 effect of rain, and the constant action of stagnant bottom-water, in main- 

 taining land in a wet condition.] 



It is this subterranean water, as it may be not improperly 

 termed, to which excessive and injurious wetness is attri- 

 butable ; and if such water be not removed and kept down 

 at a depth exceeding the power of capillary attraction to 

 elevate it too near the surface, no drainage can be efficient. 

 It is this force, combined with the absorbent power of the 

 earths, wliich chiefly maintain those soils in a suiEciently 

 moist state for vegetative perfection, on digging into which, 

 we do not discover any free water within several feet of the 

 surface. The effect of rain is to thoroughly moisten such 

 soil, gravity carrying down below the excess, or that portion 

 which the soil cannot absorb or retain. Evaporation takes 

 place from the surface of the land, and as each atom of 

 moisttu'e is taken up into the atmosphere, its place is 

 supplied by another atom communicated by the contact of 

 the particles of soil, the more superficial acting on the 

 deeper particles like so many pumps to elevate the water 



