JANUARY. $1 



The expence of covered drains may be estimated, 

 on an average, at 3l. an acre, when done -with 

 spades. Now this expenditure will, in moderate 

 cases, be repaid by the mere saving of the extra 

 expence of water-furro wing, exclusive of all the 

 superior benefits of it. Covered drains, dug 32 

 inches deep, two inches wide at bottom and 12 at 

 top, and filled about 10 inches deep, may be com- 

 pletely executed at 3d. a perch, where labour is 

 18d. per day in winter. In respect to filling up 

 these drains, the farmer must be guided by the cir- 

 cumstances of situation. If stones are to be had 

 in great plenty, he should fill with them. Bushes, 

 common faggot-wood, bricks, horns, and bones,' 

 turf laid in like a wedge, straw, fern, ling, stub- 

 ble, &c. are all used in various places ; and in 

 Essex, where these drains have been made almost 

 time immemorial, the fanners insist, that the great 

 object is not durability of materials, but the arch- 

 ing of the earth, when the materials are rotten and' 

 gone. In many parts of that county, drains rim 

 well to this day, tUat were filled with nothing but 

 straw more than thirty years ago. The extending 

 such a practice should, however, depend absolutely 

 on soil ; for most certainly there are soils, in which 

 it would be totally inexpedient. 



A very economical way of doing this work is the 

 following : first, the farmer ploughs four or five 

 times in a place with his common plough, and then 

 shovels out the loose mould ; after which, on that 

 smooth bottom, he takes one spit with a very long 



spade, 



