2 



with drains — the closer the better. These cb-ains need 

 not be more than from 2 to 3 feet in depth, and 12 or 

 16 inches in breadth at top, and 9 inches at bottom. 

 They should be shored with flat stones, or filled with 

 round stones or coarse gravel, (covered with bushes, 

 straw, rushes or sods, with the grassy sides down- 

 wards,) and care should be taken not to throw the 

 stiff yellow or bluish clay, you dig out, over the stones, 

 else you will defeat your object, by hindering the 

 water from trickling downwards. Ground of this kind, 

 from the nature of the bottom, will never become 

 perfectly sound, nor fit for working in winter, dm"ing 

 which time (if in a broken state) it shoidd be carefully 

 ribbed up with spade and shovel, and when in lea, 

 cattle should not be allowed to tread on it. 



Afiother mode of cure (which I recommend in pre- 

 fei-ence), is the following : 



Take your spade and shovel, throw off all the loose 

 earth, or upper soil, into rows 30 feet asunder, then 

 shape the hard clay underneath, in the intermediate 

 spaces, into ridges 4 feet high in the centre ; work, 

 in short, as if you were forming a road 30 feet in 

 breadth, (only making your ridge much higher than if 

 for that purpose,) and then spread the earth which 

 you had removed equally over this new sm-face : 

 by this treatment you will render your land perfectly 

 dry at all times, which, -with such an undersoil as I 

 am supposing, cannot be the case in very wet seasons, 

 even if with much draining ; all the upper soil will be 

 of uniform depth ; and when once these ridges are 

 thrown into this shape, they preserve it for ever. — 

 It is true, that the side which may be exposed to the 

 prevaihng wind, and not open to the sun, will pro- 

 duce less luxuriantly than the sunny and sheltered 

 side ; but the total crop from a field so managed will 

 be much greater than that in which there are much 

 flatter ridges. 



When wetness is caused by springs on flat ground, 

 bursting upwards and requiring vent, cut drains (of 



