IMPKOVEMENTS FROM DRAINING. 337 



irons are sometimes used ; and, as in the case which is 

 said to have originated Elkington's plan, the water will 

 well up into the drain, and so pass off, or it will sink 

 down into some porous bed, and so be absorbed. The 

 tools chiefly used in deep-draining, are the ditcher's 

 shovel, the hand-pick, and foot-pick, and, where boring 

 is resorted to, the common auger, a sharp pyramidal 

 punch, and a chisel or jumper, for making way through 

 obstacles in the soil. 



The results which follow successful draining, on Elk- 

 ington's method, may be gathered from the following 

 description of the estate of Spottiswoode, in Berwick- 

 shire, as given by Mr. Black in his Prize Essay. '' Bursts 

 and springs which formerly disfigured entire fields, and 

 which rendered tillage precarious and unprofitable, are 

 now not to be seen ; and swamps, which were not only 

 useless in themselves, but which injured all the land 

 around them, have been totally removed. The conse- 

 quence is ; that tillage can now, in those parts, be carried 

 on without interruption, and with nothing beyond the 

 ordinary expenditure of labour and manure ; and a sward 

 of the best grass is raised and continued on spots which 

 formerly only produced the coarsest and least valued 

 herbage. . . . The hurtful effects of rime or hoar-frost 

 on vegetation, is a circumstance familiar to all who have 

 had experience of cold and elevated districts, or of low 

 lands subject to exhalations, excluded from the influence 

 of the sun and currents of air. The rime in these swampy 

 hollows, of which mention has been made, was found, 

 even in the warmest seasons, to be productive of serious 

 inconvenience and injury to the growing crops ; and 

 that chiefly at the period when the grain was approach- 

 ing its mature state. This evil, it may be said, has been 

 removed, or at least is now so little felt, that the grain 

 produced in these very hollows has for many years 

 escaped the smallest perceptible injury from this cause. 

 "Another effect which was still less contemplated, and 

 has not less agreeably resulted from the drainage under- 

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