112 



DRA 



DR A 



bear drought remarkably well. As 

 this country very often has its 

 crops greatly diminished by dry 

 seasons, it would be well if every 

 farmer had continually some of this 

 kind of soil in tillage, or mowing, 

 or in both. 



Covered or hollow drains are 

 more used for the drying of springy, 

 wet and spungy uplands. They 

 may be used with advantage on 

 gentle declivities, where the soil 

 appears spewy and cold, by means 

 of springs. They will cause the 

 soil above and below them, to be 

 more dry and fruitful. But if the 

 descent be very steep, or if the 

 wetness of declivities be owing on- 

 ly to water running down oji the 

 surface, the open drains are to be 

 preferred : For if they were cov- 

 ered, the water would pass over 

 them, and the drain would be of 

 little advantage. 



To make a hollow drain, dig a 

 channel between thirty and thirty- 

 six inches wide at the top, and six 

 inches, or the breadth of a spade, 

 at the bottom, and three feet deep, 

 giving it just descent enough to 

 make the water run briskly. Fill 

 it half full, or more, with small 

 stones, thrown in at random, and 

 cover them with a layer of straw, 

 leaves, or the small branches of 

 trees with the leaves on them ; then 

 fill it up to a level with the surface, 

 with the earlh that was thrown out. 

 Such a drain, as it will not choke 

 or fill up, will never need repair- 

 ing. If the descent should be but 

 just so much as to make the water 

 run slowly, there may be some dan- 

 ger of its choking up and ceasing to 

 run at all. But this danger will be 



greater or less according to the 

 difference of soils. There will be 

 no danger of it, in a soil that does 

 not easily dissolve in water. 



If stones be scarce, long faggots, 

 or fascines, laid in the trench, will 

 answer as well, so long as they last ; 

 which being secluded from the air, 

 will not rot soon. Some say they 

 have known them to answer well 

 for forty years, but this must only 

 be in places where they are always 

 kept wet. Ill situations exposed 

 to wet and dryness, they perish in 

 five or six years. 



If a plain piece of ground be too 

 wet to be made fit for tillage by 

 ridge ploughing, it should be made 

 drier by hollow drains. If no low- 

 er place be adjoining, where the 

 drains may have an outlet, holes 

 should be dug in some of the low- 

 est parts of the plain, to examine 

 what strata are under the soil. It 

 is likely that a stratum of clay, or 

 of some other earth not easily 

 penetrated by water, is the real 

 cause of the wetness of the soil. If 

 you find it so, then dig through the 

 stratum, and below it, till you come 

 to loose gravel, sand, or something 

 that will easily imbibe water : Fill 

 up the hole with stones, and direct 

 your hollow drains to it. It will 

 serve for a perpetual outlet ; and 

 conduce much to the drying of the 

 soil. 



The peculiar advantages of hol- 

 low drains are, that they will not 

 need repairing, as they do not fill 

 up ; that no soil is wasted, or ren- 

 dered useless by them ; that a 

 plough may pass over them to as 

 great a depth as is necessary in any 

 kind of tillage ; and carts and oth> 



