25 DRAINING. [JAN. 



DITCHES. 



In very wet soils, where draining is an essen- 

 tial improvement, and where the soil is a poor, 

 loose loam, and rot sufficiently consolidated, an 

 evil that demands clay or marie, it is the custom 

 of many farmers to dig" ditches of much greater 

 depth and width, for the double purpose of making 

 better drains, and of raising clay or marie, where- 

 with to manure the fields. But I have heard other, 

 and very practical farmers, object to this ; urging, 

 that the expence, when compared with marling 

 from a pit, is more than doubled ; for it costs more 

 to throw it out of a ditch than into a cart, and, 

 when removed, only two men can stand to fill : 

 and, further, that for want of the greater depth to 

 which pits are dug, the marie is neither so good 

 nor so pure. These objections are powerful ones, 

 and seem to authorize the farmer to reject any 

 greater size of ditch, than the two purposes of 

 draining and fencing demand. 

 DRAINING. 



January is a proper season for draining. There 

 are several sorts of drains ; but I shall confine 

 myself at present to the covered ones. There 

 are two methods of making them ; one by ploughs, 

 which cut them cither at one, or various furrows, 

 according to their merit ; another by digging with 

 :em of spades, which work one after the other, 

 so as to dig a drain about two inches wide at bot- 

 tom, and of various depths and breadths at top. 



If 



