DRAINING. 



439^ 



DRAINING. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF ITS UTILITY EXPLAINED. 



Have we dwelt or can we dwell too often on a point connected with agricul- 

 tural improvement which, until lately, has not attracted the attention of the ag- 

 ricultural community — nor does it even now, if we may judge by what we see 

 in the country, in anything like the degree that it deserves to do ! Before we had 

 read more than half the following article, we decided to preserve it in our jour- 

 nal, not for the sake of the growers of grapes — few and far between as they are — 

 but for the very reasons that, in the close of it, we found avowed as those which 

 had prompted the learned writer. Yes, we believe with him that 100 bushels 

 of wheat will yet be raised on an acre, and that treble our present would have 

 been our average crop if the sons of farmers were educated for the Plow, as care- 

 fully and thoroughly as the chosen* few of the Government are now educated for 

 the Sword, at the expense chiefly of the landed interest. 



When a viae border is drained it is im- 

 proved, not so much by the removal of water 

 as by the admission of air. But the removal 



There are few gardeners now remaining 

 who would think of growing vines in a wet 

 border. To have it thoroiiglily drained is the 

 first condition requisite for success ; upon this 

 all are agreed. But we are by no means sure 

 that they always understand whj/ thorough 

 drainage is so essential. It is to be suspected 

 that, in some minds at least, water is supposed 

 to be tlie gardener's enemy — to be a substance 

 quite unsuitable to plants, and of which it is 

 the gardener's aim to get nd. Once, indeed, 



of supeifluoiis water, and tlie free access of 

 air, has the additional and very important ef- 

 fect of raising the temperature of soil. Air is 

 a bad conductor of heat, water a good one : a 

 border composed of porous materials not wa- 

 ter-logged is an apparatus of non-conducting 

 cavities, from which any heat that may be 

 gained escapes with difficulty and slowly- 



we overheard a " practical man" boasting of once warmed it remains so, not for a few 

 the dryness of his vine border, and telling a 

 brother " practical" that nobody could squeeze 

 a drop out of it. The same ingenious gentle- 

 man was found, four months afterward, be- 

 sieging his acquaintances for advice how to 

 keep down the red spider, which, as he al- 

 leged, his jiredecessor had allowed to get to 

 such a head that it had almost killed the vines 

 which he had planted in the new border that 

 he had laid dry, with so mucli cleverness, in 

 the previous sjiriiig. Luckily it is not easy 

 to over-dry solid earth in England. 



But, as we have repeatedly stjited, it is the 

 air that takes the place of water in well- 

 drained soil, which proves so beneficial to 

 ])lants ; it is because air cannot reacli the 

 ro<)t8 of plants, when a border is water-logged, 

 that trees suffer. Roots require air as well 



hours, but for weeks. Water, on the contra- 

 ry, carries off" heat with such rapidity that a 

 water-l(5gged border is always cold. Wann 

 rain, falling on a water-logged soil, cannot 

 sink into it, but remains near the surface, and 

 speedily cools again ; but warm rain falling 

 on a thoroughly drained border sinks quickly 

 through it, parts with its heat as it descends, 

 and that heat is detained in the air cavities 

 of the soil to be very gradually parted with 

 again. 



We may therefiire say that a thoroughly 

 drained border is advantageous to a vnie, not 

 because it has less water, but because it has 

 more air and warmth. 



It so happens that there exists a vine bor- 

 der constructed with reference to these prin- 

 ci|)les — that is to say, well drained, well aired. 



as leaves, and no mistake can bo greater than [ and as well warmed as it can be by merely 

 to suppose the contrary. It is evident that, I natural means. It is to be found at Ca.stle 

 if the crevices i)etween the particles of soil in Malgwyn, near Pembroke, the .seat of A. L. 

 a garden are filled with water, air must be | Gower, Esq. ; and is thus desciibed in the 

 thence excluded ; they cannot both be pres- i new number of the "Journal of the Ilorticul- 

 cut, fin- the ([uantity of air dissolved in stag- j tural Society ; 



nant water is too inconsiderable to deserve 

 attention. It may be eimugh for the main- 

 tenance of a rush or a hors(Mail. l)iit not inv a 

 healthy garden plant, and least of all fur a 

 vine, whoso air-vi'Ssels are perhaps the largest 

 and most abundant ofauv European U'ee. 

 ^839) 



The bottom of the border is gently .sloped' 

 from the houses to the extreme cdL'e, wjiero 

 is b\iilt a box-drain extending the whole 

 le;igtli of the border, as shown in the accom- 

 panying section marked 1 ; this drain is 1 foot 

 square, the lop of it being level with the bot- 



