82 ON DRAINING. 



of the deeper system, it is painful to behold the sums of 

 mone}^ daily buried in the soil with such good intentions*, 

 but with comparatively so little useful effect. In respect, 

 however, of the depth at which drains may, with a certainty 

 of action, be placed in a soil, I pretend to assign no rule ; 

 for there cannot, in my opinion, be a more crude or mistaken 

 idea, than that one rule of depth is applicable with equal 

 efficiency to soils of all kinds : the same remark applies in 

 reo'ard to assi^-nin"- any common rule of distance between 

 drains, which may be greater or less according- to the depth 

 of the drains, and the texture of the particular soil. It must 

 be self-evident that water will flow through a gravel, or a 

 sand, or a loam, with less obstruction to its passage than 

 through a clay, and easier through one clay than through 

 another containing different proportions of silica and alu- 

 mina. There are also many other properties of soil to which 

 the drainer has to pay attention in determining depth and 

 distance, such as tightness or compactness, imiformity, or 

 intermixture of soils of a different texture in the line of his 

 drains in the same field, &c. &c. All these circumstances 

 will affect both his practice and the cost of the work. It 

 consists witli my own practice at the present time, that 

 drains are being executed at depths of from four to six feet 

 deep, according to soil and outfall, and at distances varying- 

 from twenty to sixty-six feet; complete efficiency being the 

 end studied, and the proof of such efficiency being that, after 

 a due period given for bringing about drainage action in 

 soils unused to it, the water should not stand higher, or 

 much higher, in a hole dug in the middle between a pair of 

 drains than the level of those drains. 



The cost of drainage is in like manner affected by the 

 texture of soils, their stoniness, &c. ; and rates of work are 

 being paid, var^'ing from Sd. to even Is. 6d. per rod (5|- 

 yards), causing the cost of drainage per acre to vary from 

 1?/. to even 5/. per acre, according to circumstances. 

 ^^.^The following instance is adduced by j^Ir. Parkes of the 

 necessity of ascertaining the nature of the soil to be drained : — • 

 A grass-field at Strathfield-Saye was found very wet, and it 

 was thought that no drainage deeper than about 2 feet would 

 have any effect upon it, as drains in other parts, which had 

 been made 3 feet G inches deep, had not effected much more 

 good than the shallower ones. It was also thought that the 

 mass of clay beneath would be found almost impervious to 

 water, as cracks had only opened in hot seasons to about 15 



