DRAINING. 



DRAINING. 



him, by its escape, that he is preserving a 

 proper' fall. When the drain is cut to the 

 requisite depth, he proceeds to fill it up with 

 the materials through which the drainage wa- 

 ters are to flow, to within such a distance only 

 as is out of the reach of the plough ; and then 

 the earth is shovelled back again over the 

 drainage materials. The description of these 

 materials, of necessity, varies with the nature 

 of the country and its produce; in Essex, 

 brushwood and straw are chiefly employed; 

 in the northern parts of the island, stones, 

 broken lime, or sandstone are used. Bricks 

 and tiles are resorted to in districts where 

 cheaper materials are not to be procured ; and 

 these are made in a variety of forms ; and re- 

 cently one or two valuable improvements have 

 taken place in the construction of them by 

 machinery; so that, by those of the Marquis 

 of Tweeddale and Mr. Beart, draining tiles are 

 now made at a very reduced price. Upon tile- 

 making, in general, there is a good paper by 

 Mr. Wiggins, Journ. Roy. dgr. Soc. vol. i. p. 315. 

 The tiles of the Marquis of Tweeddale are 

 described Trans. High. &jc. vol. vi. p. 50, and 

 Journ. Roy. Agr. Soc. vol. ii. p. 148 ; and those 

 of Mr. Beart, with engravings of his machine, 

 in the Journ. of the Roy. Eng.Jlgr. Soc. vol. ii. p. 

 93 ; by which'it seems that in Huntingdonshire 

 the cost of the tiles made by his apparatus is 

 about 15s. per 1000: this varies, of course, 

 with the price of coals, of which variation Mr. 

 Pu.sey has constructed the following table. 



These are commonly used with the flat or 

 sole tiles, which cost, in Huntingdonshire, from 

 8s. to 10s. per 1000. The clay best adapted 

 for tiles is that which contains a small pro- 

 portion of sand, or sand may be mixed 

 with the clay. Thf an 

 nexed cut gives the shape 

 of the Tweeddale patent 

 drain tile. It is common- 

 ly made 3 inches deep, 



wide, and about 12 n 



s:. c: m"~ length. 



The subject of under-draining is, compara- 

 tively, so little understood in the United States, 

 and its importance so great, that we are in- 

 duced to subjoin the following additional 

 information, chiefly condensed from that ex 

 cellent work " The Book of the Farm, by H. Ste* 

 phens," now publishing in Edinburgh. 



The dimensions of tile-drains, depends entirely 



on the way these are to be constructed. If the 



bottom be hard and no soles are to be placed 



under the tiles, the drain may be cut narrower; 



1 and if nothing else but tile and sole are to be 



\ put into them before the earth is returned 



they may be shallower. In regard to the em- 



p.ovment of soles where the drain has a clay 

 ft bottom, Mr. Stephens is strenuous ia his as- 



sertions that they are always necessary. What- 

 ever may be the nature of the earthy bottom, 

 to be occupied by the tiles, these should always 

 lave soles, or something equivalent, to protect 

 the earth from the destructive effects of water. 



Where soles are employed their -icidtli must deter- 

 mine the width of the bottom of the drain. As yet 

 no regular width has been agreed upon gene- 

 rally, though it would be a matter of some im- 

 portance to have this done. The breadth of 

 soles made in the neighbourhood of Kilmar- 

 nock, at the tile-kilns belonging to the Duke of 

 Portland in Ayrshire, as well as those made by 

 Mr. Boyle, tile-maker in Ayr, is 7 inches ; and 

 this breadth is made to answer tiles varying 

 from 4 to 3 inches in width, inside measure. 

 For a 4-inch tile, a narrower width than 7 

 inches would not answer; as the tile is of 

 an inch thick, only $ of an inch is left beyond 

 each side of the tile when placed on the sole, 

 which is as little space as it can stand on secure- 

 ly. For the smaller sized tile of 3 inches, the 

 width is ample; but still, it is no disadvantage 

 to a tile to have plenty of room on a sole, as 

 its position can easily be fixed by wedging in 

 stones on each side against the walls of the 

 drain, when stones are used above the tiles ; 

 or it leaves sufficient room for a lapping of 

 turf over, and wedging of earth on each side 

 of, the top of the tile. In the case of a 5-inch- 

 wide drain at bottom, the smallest size of tile, 

 2$ inches wide inside, must be used, as only f . 

 of an inch would be left on each side of that 

 width of tile. 



Soles are usually made flat, but Mr. Boyle 

 makes them curved; not because they are bet- 

 ter suited for the purpose, but merely because 

 they are more easily dried in the sheds ; but a 

 curved sole is objectionable, as it is more diffi- 

 cult to form a smooth bed for it to lie upon, 

 and it is more apt to break when it happens 

 not to be firmly laid upon its bed than a flat 

 sole. 



As to tiles, their perfect form is thus well de- 

 scribed by Mr. Boyle: "All tiles should be a 

 fourth higher than wide; the top rather quickly 

 turned, and the sides nearly perpendicular. 

 Tiles which are made to spread out at the 

 lower edge and flat on the top, are weak, and 

 bad for conveying water. Some people prefer 

 tiles with flanges instead of soles; but if 

 placed, even in a drain with a considerably 

 hard bottom, the mouldering of the subsoil by 

 the currents of air and water causes them to 

 sink and get deranged." Tiles should Tbe 

 smooth on the surface, heavy, firm, and ring 

 like cast-iron when struck with the knuckle. 

 They should be so strong when set, as to allow 

 a man not only to stand, but to leap upon them 

 without breaking. The introduction of ma- 

 chinery in the manufacture of drain-tiles, by 

 compressing the clay, and working it tho- 

 roughly in a pug-mill to prepare it for being 

 compressed, has greatly tended to increase the 

 strength of tiles. I have seen drain-tiles so 

 rough, spongy, crooked, and thin, as to be shi- 

 vered to pieces by a night's frost when laid 

 down beside the drain. The use of machinery 

 has caused a great deal more clay to be put into 

 them, and their greater substajice has been the 

 cause of improvement in the construction of 

 2*2 413 



