f 
3 
THE 
 29—1846.] 
AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
491 
should act just and economically as a. remedy for the 
difficulty now in the way of its productiveness. In the 
meantime the practical method of increasing the pro- 
ductiveness of soils was to manure more highly, and 
our stock of manure could be increased—First, by 
saving what we now lose a great portion of—the urine 
of our cattle, &c., and the gaseous and soluble parts of 
our dunghills. Secondly, by the applieation of what 
is now notoriously wasted—the sewage manures of 
towns and the refuse of many manufactures. Thirdly, 
by the use of imported manures, as bones, guano, Xc, 
On this last point, Professor Johnston stated that 
lately there were actually imported into Berwick-upon- 
Tweed above three or four thousand tons of bones, while 
' last year there were imported six or eight hundred tons 
only. "They had, in fact, on some soils lost their value 
as manures, proving that the supply of no one substance, 
in whatever quantity, would meet the wants of plants, 
Asa balance to this great diminution in the quantity of 
bones used, there were imported during last year into 
Berwick about 5000 tons of guano, 
Professor Johnston then spoke on the importance of 
education to the farmers, 1t was of the utmost im- 
portance that they should educate their sons—not their 
bodies but their minds. In every town you will see 
manufacturers that are bringing up one and two of a 
family as farmers; and how are they fitting them to 
hold this station? not by sending them to drudge at 
farm work, but by educating them in the principles on 
which all good farming depends ; and if ever the time 
should come when these or uneducated farmers’ sons 
shall be tenants of the land, it is easy to foresee on 
whom the choice will be. The very maintenance of 
their station in society thus depends on the farmer 
educating his family. 
After the conelusion of the lecture, Mr. Tuomson 
spoke on the proper method of managing the dung- 
heap. It consisted in due attention to the supply of 
air and water. The best plan was to prepare a hollow 
surface with a tank in the centre, and on this to place 
the manure ; it should be compressed and covered if 
intended to lie long before use or left loose and lightly 
Covered, and oceasionally wetted in order to draw the 
air through the heap if intended to be used soon. In 
fact, vegetable decomposition was a true though slow 
and imperfect combustion. Keep the air from it, and 
you render it impossible to be rotted; supply air 
abundantly, and you rot it rapidly. 
_ Mr. Crompton was then called upon to state his expe- 
rience in liquid manure tanks. He had had many years 
experience, and had used the liquid on all sorts of 
crops. Almost any form of tank or mode of construc- 
tion answered if it were made large enough. The 
Material used in making it soon became impervious 
‘om the infiltration of matter. He applied about 25 
cubic yards of the manure per acre by means of a 
water-cart and short hose, by which the man walking 
ehind spread the liquid as he walked—no pierced 
Spout had answered with him. He had for 14 years on 
one field applied no other manure than this ; each year 
he had cut two great crops of Grass the first for 
hay ; the next for green food. 
A gentleman from Aberdeen spoke next, saying as 
regarded the needful size of the tank, that he had a yard, 
Covered over and containing 50 head of cattle—that 
these cattle were well littered, and that in seven months 
ey had yielded 19,000 gallons of urine over and above 
e quantity required thoroughly to moisten the straw. 
This was collected in a tank of 20,000 gallons contents 
below the yard—the size which he had been advised by 
Professor Shier to construct. 
Mr. Surrg, of Deanston, then rose, and in reference 
to the subject of town sewerage spoke of the plan to 
Which we have already alluded in this paper for collect- 
tng the sewage-water of London and distributing it in 
the adjacent country. He said that it could be delivered, 
U fact spread, at a distance of 11 miles from London for 
3d. per ton, He mentioned a farm near Glasgow of 300 
"acres, on which 500 cowswerekept. The urine from these 
ows was collected in a tank, and pumped up, and thence 
through pipes into the fields, each of which was watered 
by hose from these pipes. The laying of these pipes had 
Cost 30s, per acre, and the crops thus treated were very 
he indeed. Mr. Smith also spoke of the propriety of 
Orough draining dung-heaps, collecting the liquid 
ne out of them and spreading it over the heap again. 
t inan ieal 
on which, however, the following notes will be read with 
interest :— 
Discussion on DmarwagE.—Mr, Parkes commenced 
by saying that everybody knew that land was injured by 
excess of water. This had the effect of increasing the 
difficulties attending the mechanical working of the 
soil; it lowered the temperature of the soil; it hindered 
air from entering it, and rain from descending through it. 
These injurious effects are by no means confined to 
our naturally wet clayey soils ; they are apparent over 
large districts of siliceous sandy soil. The effect of wet- 
ness is apparent when we compare our naturally wetwith 
our naturally dry soils. The difference is enormous, as 
every farmer, knows, poth in the expense of, and in 
the returns from their cultivation. Well, the object of 
drainageis toassimilate the naturally wet to the naturally 
dry soils, to confer on the former artificially all those 
valuable qualities which are possessed by the latter 
naturally. Drainage has hitherto been too shallow ; 
speaking practically, instances are numerous in which 
land drained shallow has not been drained at all, while 
when afterwards drained deeper, the evil has been 
cured, The attention which the Society has, during 
the few past years, directed to the subject, has resulted 
both in the collection of a vast mass of facts bearing upon 
this and other points, and in the improvement of the 
machinery required. A few years ago, 1000 feet per 
diem was the utmost which any tile machine was capable 
of making, but now we have machines with the “faculty” 
of emitting 20,000 feet of tile pipe in the same period, 
[Mr. Parkes did not refer here to the power required to 
work these machines, but of course we suppose he means 
that in both cases the power used was the same. If this be 
so, the difference appears enormous, considering that the 
application of the power is as simple as can be imagined, 
and almost, we should have conceived, incapable of ad- 
mitting contrivance for inereasing its efficiency. Its 
effect is simply the compulsion of a semi-fluid or plastic 
material through an aperture.] The theory of deep 
drainage was first and almost perfectly enuneiated so 
long ago as the year 1652. A work,“ The English Im- 
prover Improved, &c., &c., by Captain Walter Bligh, a 
Lover of Ingenuity,” which then went through three 
editions, states the principles and the facts of this sub- 
ject as clearly as they could be stated now, and to that 
work may be attributed much of the isolated truth ex- 
isting here and there on the subject all over the country. 
[Mr. Parkes then read several most apposite and in- 
structive extracts from this work, which we shall here- 
after take the opportunity of laying before our readers.] 
The condition of the soil with regard to water will be 
ascertained by considering the effects relatively of 
evaporation from the surface, and capillary action from 
below. The one tending to dry the active soil, the 
other to keep it wet ; the one not in most soils capable 
of neutralizing the other, and in some incapable even of 
keeping pace with it; for this reason, among others, 
that it acts only during 12 hours of the day, while the 
other acts day and night. 
The object of drainage is to render the soil pervious 
to air and rain — the atmosphere, as proved by its in- 
fluence in the operation of fallowing, is a boundless 
storehouse of manure; then, why not let it deeply into 
the land ? 
Mr. Parkes then gave us the history of his operation 
at Strathfieldsaye, stating that in his opinion they exhi- 
bited the whole theory and effect of true land drainage. 
The land was a stiff clay, 5, 6, and 7 feet thick. It had 
been shallow drained, i.e. at depths of 18, 24, 36,and even 
42 inches, but ineffectually. He dug a pit 4 feet 10 
inches deep without getting any water in it, while, not- 
withstanding /hat, he could absolutely squeeze the water 
out of the top soil. No sooner, however, had he sunk 
6 or 7 inches deeper than the water rapidly filled in. 
had made a drain 350 yards long at that depth 
through the field, and that drain for 76 days had run 
about a gallon a minute, while a drain placed in the 
same ditch, bub only 3 feet 6 inches deep, had hardly 
delivered any water at all. The deep drain had delivered 
about 5 tons of water daily. In fact, the quantity of 
water that had flowed out of it constituted a bed 5j 
inches thick over the 4200 square yards which the 
drain represented. The soil in this case lay ona bed 
of free water, and, considering the enormous powers of 
capillary action which that stiff soil possessed, no wonder 
that it was continually wet. His success at Strathfield- 
saye had ioned a perfect revolution of opinion in 
© said it was of great imp 
Qo of view that farmers should prepare their manure 
lo in one body and all at once, but in different sec- 
uS each for its own crop, and to be got ready for 
Pplieation at its proper period. 
ord Portman then made a few remarks on the value 
of education to the farmer, and on the capital result of 
this the first attempt at annual discussion on practical 
Points at the Society’s meetings ; and the assembly then 
Ispersed, è 
tap ednesdoy, July 15.—The town is becoming very 
ull. There has been a considerable attendance in the 
Mplement yard all day. A publie trial of Thrashing 
EA Wiunowing Machines took place at 12 o'clock. Mr. 
See's Corn-dressing Machine appeared to act ad- 
Sey ; the feed-roller of it was capable of delivering, 
ime the fans and riddles of cleaning, the work of the 
at y Worst of thrashing-machines—full of broken straw 
RBS Sorts of rubbish. 
e day closed with an admirable lecture by Mr. 
*8 on the subject of Drainage, followed by a discus- 
a in which Mr, Smith, of Deanston, took a part, 
ave not time to give a full report of this lecture, 
Park 
Sion, 
that neighbourhood, so that men who laughed at the 
idea of a deep drain before he came there were now 
RE their land by drains 6 feet deep and 4 poles 
EI er. 
Mr. Parkers then called attention to some causes of 
stoppage to which drains were liable. There are cer- 
tain deposits of an unctuous and sometimes of a ferru- 
ginous character liable to accumulate in pipes. These 
he avoids by using a small and a cylindrical pipe: the 
current.of water is thus made smaller and more rapid, 
and therefore better able to remove deposit. In one 
ease he had obtained an analysis of this deposit ; and 
Mr. Philipps had informed him that it consisted of 27 
percent: of the peroxide of iron, 49 per cent. of silica 
and alumina, and 23 per cent, of organic matter ; and 
it was suggested that it was a chemical deposit rather 
than a mechanical infiltration—that in fact the earbonic 
acid derived from the decomposition of the organic mat- 
ter in the soil had dissolved out a portion of the; pro- 
toxide of iron in the soil, carried it down in solu- 
tion in the water, in? which, as soon as it reached 
the air in the drain, the protoxide became a per- 
oxide—the carbonic acid left it, and it was deposited. 
Now in the case of slow precipitates of this kind, the solid 
ticles as they form are the finest known particles of 
matter in existence, and it requires but little force of 
water inan open tube to carry them wholly away. In 
fact, a bog containing much ferrugi matter had 
been drained by him with perfect success, and the pipe 
had remained open during the months they had been in 
2 
ction. 
Another liability to stoppage arose from the roots of 
trees inserting themselves, A single fibre would enter ; 
but it would (running up against the stream) divide 
itself out into a perfect brush of fibres, It was of the 
utmost importance to keep away from hedge-rows ; and 
when they must be crossed, use very long pipes, socket- 
ing into one another. > 
Mr. Parxes then directed attention to certain natural 
aids to drainage, independently of what might be called 
the porosity of the soil, Amongst these were water- 
seams, unclosed cracks, worm-holes, &e., all of which 
continually occurred in the very stiffest clays. The 
lecturer then recommended the use of the subsoil 
plough, the position of drains up and down the hill, the 
abolition of all surface-water furrows. He then ex- 
plained why a deep drain runs before a neighbouring 
shallow one, after a heavy rain, using the well-known 
simile of a cask once emptied running at the lowest tap 
first, when water is poured in; and he attempted to ex- 
plain, what he stated to be a fact, that rain-water will 
run off quicker on deep-drained than on shallow-drained 
land of the same texture. 
He then spoke of the policy of having air-drains to 
ventilate the soil—a term which he said was absurd. 
Air find its entrance to the land, not up pipes—he had 
never been able to find a current up pipes—but by the 
surfage, dissolved or mixed in the rain-water. It was 
removed from the soil by the action of changes of tem- 
erature, and by absorption into the roots of plants ; 
and other took iis place, Air-drains tended to dry the 
soil; but it was not dryness, but dampness, that was the 
proper object of drainage. 
The remaining part of the lecture was devoted to the 
consideration of the practical operation of drainage. Cy- 
lindrical tubes were best because they were complete, 
requiring no sole, because they were more easily made 
and of less substance than any other form. 
Mr. Parres then spoke of the difficulty of draining 
running sands; he had overcome it by making the 
one long pipe constituting the drain rigid from end 
to end; so that if supported at each end it would 
preserve its position; and he had effected this by 
using short. pieces, one within another. 
He then'directed his remarks to the importance of 
drainage to irrigation, saying that in very many cases 
irrigation, as at present.done, was simply swamp- 
making. 
He stated the advantage of using cesspools at 
the junctions of drains, for the purpose of examining 
the action of each drain; and also in water-meadows, 
‘or the purpose of pouring water in at these openings to 
be distributed through the subsoil by means of the 
drains stopped at their wider ends for the time. He 
concluded by calling attention to various tools manu~ 
factured by Lindon of Birmingham; and to a very 
simple metallic exit-valve for use where drains empty 
below the surface of water; and he recommended all 
water-tight junctions as, e.g., the junction of this valve 
to the terminal pipe, to be made with marine glue, 
Mr. Mansm next addressed the meeting, calling at- 
tention to the practical advantage of having our work- 
people instructed by example in the best methods of 
executing drainage. 
along recommended for j 
longer his experience, the more convinced was he of the 
accuracy of the principles on which those plans were 
founded. Gentlemen need not, thi 
that in following the recommendations he had given 
them, they had thrown their money away. He was 
still confident that the mode of drainage he had recom- 
mended many years ago on the subject was one which 
would prove successful on all soils, and in all circum- 
stances. Mr. Parkes’ experience had extended over 
but a few years, and those, years of peculiar meteoro- 
logical character ; 1844 was a very dry year, the effect 
of which would be to render soils so open as to make 
drainage both then and in the following years more 
easy and capable of being done deeper than had been. 
hitherto. His own experience had exceeded a quarter 
of a century; and he had tried all plans on all soils. 
When he first commenced draining 20 or 30 years ago, 
he had drained deeply, 4 feet deep, and others by his 
advice, in Stirlingshire, had done the same, but after a 
few years all that? drainage proving inefficient, was 
replaced by other drains on the plan recommended in 
his pamphlet, and the success had been perfect. — 
Mr. Smıru concluded by saying that while he main- 
tained the accuracy of his views, in contra-distinetion 
to those of Mr. Parkes, he had expressed himself with- 
out the least acrimonious feeling; that he had known 
and respected Mr, Parkes for many years, and that he 
respected every man who;exerted himself for the true 
