54 OF DRAINING. 



in a ridge of ten or twelve chains in breadth, there are per- 

 haps three or four small open drains, provincially called 

 Gaw Furrs, which go across the whole field, to carry off' 

 the surface-water, and these must be cleared every time the 

 field is ploughed. 



On the subject of clay lands, Dr Coventry has well obser- 

 ved, that a complete drainage is absolutely essential, as the 

 first and fundamental step to their improvement. For that 

 purpose, it is necessary to make proper ditches, open drains 

 or water-courses, and to keep them clear. It is evident, that 

 unless the water collected from the different " buts" or 

 * ; ridges," can easily get away, it will be to no purpose to 

 facilitate its passage from these, or the general surface of 

 the ground, by " water-furrows," or small cuts made by 

 the plough or spade ; and the state of the larger ditches or 

 open drains, with their best direction, is among the first 

 things to be attended to by a cultivator.* 



2. On the subject of under-drains, I have received an in- 

 teresting communication from Mr James Andrew, farmer 



* An intelligent correspondent informs me, that above twenty years 

 ago, in making drains for carrying off the water from springs in the upper 

 part of a field which appeared to require to be taken in hollow drains, for 

 a great distance, he observed, that the water had a tendency to disappear 

 about the middle of the field. He caused a pit to be dug at that place, 

 six feet deep, and equally wide. Here the water got vent. He led the 

 hollow drain into it, and filled the pit with field stones, which were co- 

 vered with twenty inches of earth. The springs of water have never since 

 appeared. He has since done the same in various situations, by carrying 

 a hollow drain, only so far as the water appeared. Sometimes a gravel, 

 and at other times a rocky bottom might be found, at five or six feet 

 deep, which absorbed the water, and rendered farther draining unneces- 

 sary. 



This is a good plan, where the water does not again burst out, which 

 often happens where the stratum does not end either in the bottom of a 

 river, or in the sea. 



