702 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



who, by practice, is equally competent ; this person always working at daily wages, to 

 prevent him from having any interest in hurrying over this most important part of the 

 operation. " 



4262. The drains may be cut only " two feet wide, with the sides perfectly perpen- 

 . dicular, provided that, from the tenacity or hardness of the substances dug through, the 

 sides will stand till the stones are put in. It is usual, however, to break the ground 

 somewhat wider at the top, and so to give it a slight slope to the bottom. The 

 work of cutting is always done by contract at so much per rood or yard, and se- 

 veral labourers generally join in making one drain, and arrange the work among 

 themselves. The casting or cutting, it is scarcely necessary to observe, is always 

 commenced by the workmen at the lower end, and worked upwards to the higher 

 ground, and never downwards. They usually begin by working about two feet 

 deep in the first instance, several roods in length, then going over the ground again, 

 deepening it to four or five feet, and afterwards going over it the last time, and 

 finishing the bottom, by making it perfectly level and ready for the mason to build 

 the conduit in the bottom. The bottom must, for this purpose, be completely two 

 feet wide, though, when free-stone is employed, the width may be less." {Trans. 

 Highl. Soc.) 



4263. In building the drain, " the mason has an assistant, generally a female, at 

 the top, who hands him the stones he requires. He begins with small flat stones 

 to build the wall on each side of the bottom of the drain, nine inches broad, and 

 six inches high, so as to leave six inches for the conduit in the middle. This he 

 does roughly, but in such a manner that the stones shall be laid solidly on one 

 another. When the ground at the bottom is solid, either dry gravel, or clay, or 

 rock, the mason's foot, with his ordinary clog or shoe, standing in the centre, is 

 the measure of the width of the conduit. When the land is inclined to be wet 

 and soft, a plank six inches broad is used for him to stand upon. When the bot- 

 tom is a wet spongy clay, or sand of the nature of a quicksand, or veiy soft, it 

 is often necessary to flag the bottom of the conduit with very thin stones or slates." 

 {Trans. Highl Soc vol. vii.) 



-4264. When a perfect quagmire has been met with, " which has happened chiefly in 

 red clay, the faster the wet clay has been thrown out, the faster it has boiled up from 

 below. In these cases, it has been found necessary to lay planks on the bottom of the 

 drain, and build upon them. But this will very seldom be necessary where proper pre- 

 cautions are used. On first meeting with quagmires of this kind, attempts were 

 made to dig them out ; for which purpose a strong wooden frame was made, large enough 

 for four men to work in with freedom, composed of different pieces, so that the workmen 

 might add to the sides of the frame as they worked downwards. Notwithstanding 

 the frame's being made very strong, the pressure became so great, that the sides came 

 together, and stopped the operation. The consequence was, that, after great labour and 

 active exertion in taking out large quantities of wet clay, which thus continued to boil 

 up (but the very taking out of which undermined the banks from beneath), the sides of 

 the drain fell in masses, and made great gaps, which increased the longer the work was 

 carried on. In these circumstances, it became necessary to use planks to build the con- 

 duit, and to fill in the stones as fast as possible, by employing a great number of persons 

 at once. The weight of these superincumbent stones then kept the planks and conduit 

 at their proper place, so much so that the worst of these parts never exhibited any 

 symptom of imperfection, though made ten years ago. On all occasions afterwards, 

 however, when any of these quagmires were found, the process of taking out the bottom 

 of the drain was followed, yard by yard, by flagging the bottom, building the conduit, 

 covering it, and filling the stones over it ; and in this way the quagmire was prevented, 

 by the immediate pressure from above, from boiling up. It never failed to be seen that 

 the longer these operations were delayed, the softer and more intractable the interior of 

 the drain became. After building the side walls for a yard or two in length, the 

 mason, according to circumstances, cleans out the conduit with a narrow hoe, and then 

 covers it with such large broad stones as he can procure, from fifteen inches in length to 

 two feet, being the utmost width of the drain itself. These are handed down carefully 

 to him by his attendant ; and, after he has laid three or four of them, he takes smaller 

 flat stones, as the larger are always uneven at the edges, and covers every interstice ; and 

 afterwards, with similar stones, packs carefully the ends of the covers, before finishing 

 any particular portion of the work so as to prevent them from shifting ; and still further 

 to cover every hole through which any thing might be carried into the conduit, he has 

 a rolled up wisp of straw which he puts in the mouth of the conduit, which allows the 

 water to pass out, but prevents mud and sand from getting in. His attendant then 

 throws the remainder of the stones in promiscuously to the depth of two feet, or some- 

 times more, if the materials are plentiful, and particularly where there are two seams con- 



