574 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



For the New Ensland Farmei , 



THOEOUGH DRAINING. 



BY UENllY F. FRENCH. 



Heat will not pass downward in water. If 

 therefore your soil be saturated with water, the heat 

 of the sun in spring cannot warm it, and your plow- 

 ing and planting must be late, and your crop a 

 failure. 



Count Rumford tried many experiments to illus- 

 trate the mode of the propagation of heat in flu- 

 ids, and his conclusion, I presume, is now held to be 

 the true theory, that heat is transmitted in water 

 only by the motion of the particles of water, so that 

 if you could stop the heated particles from rising, 

 water could not be warmed except where it touch- 

 es the vessel containing it. Heat applied to the 

 bottom of a vessel of water, warms the particles of 

 water in contact with the vessel, and they rise and 

 colder particles descend, and so the whole is 

 warmed. 



Heat applied to the surface of the water can nev- 

 er warm it, except so far as the heat is conducted 

 downwards by the vessel containing it. 



Count Rumford confined cakes of ice in the bot- 

 tom of glass jars, and covering the ice with one 

 thickness of paper, poured boiling hot water on top 

 of it, and there it remained for hours without melt- 

 ing the ice. The paper was placed over the ice so 

 that the hot water would not be poured on to it, 

 which would thaw it at once. Every man who has 

 poured hot water into a frozen pump, hoping to 

 thaw out the ice by the means, has arrived at the 

 fact, if not at the theory, that ice will not melt by 

 hot water on top of it. If, however, a piece of lead 

 pipe be placed in the pump, resting on the ice, and 

 hot water be poured through it, the ice will melt at 

 once. In the first instance, the hot water in con- 

 tact with the ice, becomes cold, and there it re 

 mains, because cold water is heavier than warm, 

 and there it will remain, though the top be boiling, 

 But when hot water is poured through the pipe, 

 the downward current drives away the cold water, 

 and brings heated particles in succession on to the 

 ice. 



Heat is propagated in water, then, only by circu- 

 lation, that is, by the upward movement of the heat- 

 ed particles, and the downward movement of the 

 colder particles, to take their place. 



Anything that obstructs circulation, prevents the 

 passage of heat. Chocolate retains heat longer 

 than tea, because it is thicker, and the hot parti- 

 cles cannot so readily rise to be cooled at the sur- 

 face. Count Rumford illustrated this fact satisfac- 

 torily, by putting eider-down into water which was 

 found to obstruct the circulation, and to prevent 

 the rapid heating or cooling of it. The same is 

 true of all viscous substances, as starch, glue, and 

 so of oil. They retain heat much longer than wa^ 

 ter or si-iirits. 



The November number of the Hortictdturist has 

 an article, with a cut explaining this subject, and 

 applying the above theory to wet land. The ex- 

 periment was made with a box of peat saturated 

 with water, and it is satisfactorily proved that it is 

 not possible to warm the earth at the bottom, by 

 putting boiling water on the surface, so long as no 

 water is drawn out at the bottom. 



As soon, however, as water was drawn out at the 

 bottom, the hot water passed down, and the earth 

 at the bottom was warmed. 



"In this experiment, the wooden box may be 

 supposed to be the field ; the peat and cold water 

 represent the water-logged portion ; rain falls on 

 the surface and becomes warmed by contact with 

 the soil, and thus heated descends. But it is stop- 

 ped by the cold water, and the heat will go no fur- 

 ther. But if the soil is drained, and not water-logged, 

 the warm rain trickles through the crevices of the 

 earth, carrying to the drain level the high tempera- 

 ture it had gained on the surface, parts with it to 

 the soil as it passes down, and thus produces that 

 bottom heat which is so essential to plants." 



Thus is shown one of the advantages of draining 

 land. Many others might be named, did time and 

 space allow. Since my article on Draining with 

 Tiles was written, I have completed my work and 

 plowed the drained land. The water disappeared 

 from between the drains, as fast as they were open- 

 ed. The low wet places where rushes had started 

 up, and where the surface without the drains would 

 have been covered several inches deep, became dry, 

 through the whole space of fifty feet, between the 

 drains. A springy side-hill, which we could not 

 plant till the 6th of June, because it was so wet, 

 and where my potatoes needed life-preservers in 

 dog days, is as dry and friable as an old market 

 garden. The 100 rods of tile drains which are laid 

 in this field empty at one opening, and although 

 the field has so dry and innocent a look, we find a 

 large flow of water at all times, and after a short 

 storm, a stream that nearly fills a three-inch tile. 



B. F. Nourse, of Orrington, Maine, has been kind 

 enough to send me a report of a Committee of the 

 Bangor Horticultural Society, showing his opera- 

 tions in draining. Mr. Nourse writes me that he 

 has this season extended his work, having now about 

 3^ miles of drains laid, two miles of which is with 

 tiles from Albany. 



I cannot make a better contribution to the cause 

 than by giving extracts from that report. 



"At the time of our visit in early summer, there 

 was but one expression of satisfaction, not only from 

 each individual member of the Committee, but from 

 all the invited guests, at the appearance of the 

 farm, the buildings, fences and crops. Although 

 the season had been wet, yet the land was dry ;_ the 

 grass, grain, corn and trees were making a vigor- 

 ous growth, being clothed with a richness of ver- 

 dure which gave promise of abundant _ harvest. 

 They all bore testimony to a careful, intelligent, sci- 



