THE AGRICULTURA L GAZETTE 



[Nov. 22, 



«paim*a rura bobus exercet *,*," buys his farm 

 F law ver, and sells it as he pleases, without 



on another man's land, and his standiw on his own i 

 It is not 'taxes,' nor « tithes,* nor « poor-rates, nor 

 'Mine,' nor 'malt tax,' nor 'currency, nor any 

 other of those worn-out old cafs-calls that have been 

 shrieked and aooped from the gallery any tune 

 these fifty years. The question is simpler, shorter, 

 and more direct, and therefore ever overlooked, as 

 «uch usually are; the question is 'Free-trade in 

 corn, without free- trade in Land V You can t see it, 

 Mr. Dobson, you think it's not war business 

 you've been blindfold too long. But you mil see it. 

 For seen it must be, and grappled with, too before 



over, or ever the mouse 



Hut this is a digression. 



introduced ; and as ho speaks of his qualifications for done at a cost of 41. 10 S . «. per acre, whUrtto^ 

 directing draining with the strongest assurance, although with upright 4 feet parallel drains at d - ?** ° 



would cost o/7s. M, per acre, and at 36 feet 4M, i £> 



"" " " a » d adds, « whilst the deep drain att^ 



distance are the cheapest by Is. an acre the f 



directi 



it does not appear that he has had any other experience 



■ • • " ' " ' ■ I an acre 



a scribbled sheep-skin for each acre. Can you beat ^^ ^^ which hig own draiuing has afforded him 

 Mm & you meet him P with yowr feet t^nibjm-: fed caUed on> ia support G f my 0W ii convictions, to refer 



No! 



two more Sessions 



begin to fall in '53. 



A clergyman, a scholar, and a gentleman, yet, 

 in spite of all these disadvantages , a prac- 

 tical as well as scientific agriculturist, starting 

 from the point where Tull left off (and through 

 lack of knowledge and opportunity, may with- 

 out derogation be said to have failed), has dis- 

 covered, "and communicated in a pamphlet * of 

 striking simplicity of language and practical style, 

 a mode" of growing Wheat which he has followed 

 with unvarying success for ix years. The only 

 variation, at least, has been that in trying it on 

 a new piece of ground, taken in hand and sown last 

 autumn, the return this harvest has exceeded by seven 

 bushels to the acre his normal return of 34 bushels 

 hitherto regularly reaped from the alternate strips 

 or beds of each acre, divided as it is into longi- 

 tudinal sections, 30 inches wide, alternately Wheat 

 and fallow, without manure, thus in fact growing 

 the quantity of corn above-named not upon the 

 whole, but upon half the acre. 



The provoking part of it is that there is really 

 no magic in it. It is as dry and matter-of-fact a 

 piece of agricultural logic, as perfectly reconcileable 

 with every true and accepted principle of vegetable 

 growth and nutrition long ago generalised by Liebig, 

 and particularised by Lawks, as if Mr. Smith had 

 dropped like a ready-made ' conclusion ' into *his 

 place, in the 'syllogism' of which they had 

 respectively furnished the premises. Everything 

 about the soil and atmosphere, everything about 

 manures organic and inorganic that! Liebig has said 

 and Lawes has proved {pace the ' Mineral Theory,' 

 most respectfully !) everything that Tull has truly 

 said about Wheat, everything that everybody 

 truly says about double-digging, 'if they could 

 only afford it, 1 is simply condensed into action, and 

 rendered visible, tangible, and practicable to the 

 common senses and spades of mankind through this 

 clever and comprehensive adaptation of 'the 



to my experience as extending over 20 years, during 

 which period I have professionally had to lay out, and 

 personally superintend, draining in almost every variety 

 of soil and situation ; and further, I will confess ^ to 

 having become a convert to the deep parallel draining 

 of Mr. Parkes, after having, in the dark, wasted much 

 money both in shallow and deep draining. 



If I did not know how ready many are to accept the 

 authority of great names, and the mischief such an 

 article appearing in the Journal is likely to effect, I 

 should feel it a waste of time to point out the weakness 

 of the reasoning, and the contradiction between the 

 principles laid down and the practice adopted ; and with 

 all due respect to Lord Wharncliffe, should take for 

 granted the unfitness of a person in his lordship's 

 station, and with his limited experience, for a practical 



drai ner. 



It is not a little extraordinary that Lord Wharncliffe, 



throughout his letter, labours to impress his readers 

 with his faith in deep draining, and in certain principles 

 to which his lordship's practice is directly opposed, 

 commences by observing, " there are few instances in 

 which I would now willingly stop short of a good 

 4 feet," and " the dominant direction should, in almost 

 all cases, be that of the slope to be drained." " These 

 appear to me to be axioms of the science f and yet his 

 lordship concludes by advocating 2 feet drains and 

 putting these drains across the slope ; but as his lordship 

 fancies he lias to deal with an exceptional case, it be- 

 comes necessary to examine his grounds for considering 



it in that light. 



His lordship speaks of " his climate as being more 

 moist and as having more rain, and more equable tem- 

 perature than the generality of England," and " his land 

 as being situated 600 to 900 feet above the level of the 

 sea, and the soil to be strong, resting on a yellow clay, 

 with beds of rock or shale impenetrable to water, ter- 

 minating at a certain point, but not always within 

 a descent of 4 feet." He describes his draining as 



distance is 17s. 

 the limits consi 



,hL an acre dearer, and thus tra 

 iderably, within which such workSTu 

 if possible, be kept with a view to profitable imnr 



necessary to produce those d 



He 





ment. 



Our readers will see from these extracts that T *a 

 Wharncliffe has neither tried the deep parallel <] • 

 at moderate distances, advocated by Mr. Par 1 - ^^ 

 the close furrow drains of the late Mr. Smith 1]^ 

 imagines he has secured all the benefit of both thlf 

 systems, and supports his departure from admmedT 

 correct principles wholly on the ground of the absent 

 in his case of the variations of temperature and droarfS* 



ifferent conditions of "the* 

 soil which are essential to its shrinking, and affording 

 the cracks and fissures requisite for the action of dee ° 

 drains to dry the surface. ^ 



I will not occupy time by entering into the curious 

 reasoning by which his lordship arrives at his deductions 

 I leave his readers to judge how far "his facts" prove 

 irresistible with relation to the occasion for the 2 feet 

 and 4 feet drains, and for surface and bottom dnuWe 

 as two distinct things. Nor will I enter into details of 

 cost ; although, as his lordship makes this so much a con- 



He " next tried drains of 3£ i' ee t a t 



unities 



of agriculture. 



It has done not only for spade-husbandry in 

 general, but for that expensive edition of it — doMe- 

 digging— what the lever does for the human arm 

 overcome the burthen by dividing it. ' Gunctando 

 restituit rem' Mr. Lawes finds that his land, 

 with ordinary cultivation, without manure, natu- 

 rally produces 17 bushels of Wheat to the 

 acre. Mr. Smith doubles the cultivation (still 

 without manure), and — exactly doubles the crop. 

 There i i sort of moral neatness about this which 

 is attractive. The only question was, how to double 

 the cultivation, and not be beaten by the expense ; 

 and the solution of this puzzle is exactly the non- 

 pareil of Mr. Smith's discovery. How to ' make an 

 egg stand on its end ■ puzzled the Savans of Madrid 

 for a good part of the loth century, till One Man 

 did it mstanter,. by a method so obvious and simple 

 that they were all ready to hang themselves. That 

 many have got into a state of suspense, though not 

 to that degree it may be hoped, upon the merits of 

 the bmitluan Wheat-system, may readily be ima- 

 gined; but the experiments upon it in progress this 

 year, mnnju parts of England, will go far to test 

 its applicability to clay soils generally. The process 

 itself is however, one which actually bristles with 

 texts of interesting discussion to the agriculturist • 

 and to some of these we must revert very soon li 



T ^ _ A REPLY TO 



LORD WHARNCLIFFE- LETTER on DRAINING 



[In the Rojal Agricultural Society's Journal, 1851, No. 1 ] 



JlL tteS a i ,ette V°i Mp " Puse y> L <*d Wham- 

 ebffe has furnished an article in the last Journal of the 



Royal Agricultural Society « On Draining under certain 



dram* of 4 feet in depth, at wide intervals in the 



m depth, at narrow mtervals across the fall Wri;™ *t 

 nght angles into the upright 4 fertdi^Strf 



5 % SSate ! **** ^ ""* *<**£ 



mi? l U J e a Very different view t<> h»s lordship, I shall 



having commenced with drains of 3 feet in depth and at 

 8 yards distance ; these, he tells us, " produced a not un- 

 satisfactory result/' 



the same distance, but here the cost was beyond the proper 

 limit." (What that cost was he does not tell us.) He 

 then "further increased the distance to 10 or 12 yards 

 without perceiving much difference in the result." He 

 then " divided 4 acres, draining one side at a depth of 

 3 feet and at 10 yards distance, and the other at 4 feet 

 and 13 yards distance," and after three years his lord- 

 ship cannot satisfy himself of any clear advantage on 

 one side or the other ; he adds, u there are parts on 

 both halves of which the surface is undrained, although 

 the outlets have never failed to do their duty." * These 

 last facts, however," he tells us, " seem to have proved 

 two things irresistibly. First, that to clear such ground 

 of bottom water, deep drains are indispensable, and 

 within rational limits, the deeper the better ; and 

 secondly, that in soils so circumstanced, the surface and 

 the bottom drainage are two distinct things, of which, 

 though the latter be complete and effective, the former 

 may at the same time be a failure.' 5 He continues, 

 ■ Looking then to the source of saturation from beneath, 

 my conviction lias been only thereby strengthened that 

 it can be reached by deep drains alone. I accordingly 

 adopted a depth of 4 feet in various localities, but then 

 again immediately sprung up the difficulty of cost." (His 

 lordship considers U. 10s. M. as the limit within which 

 draining should, if possible, be kept, with a view to pro- 

 fitable improvement.) To meet this, his lordship 

 informs us he has tried 4-feet drains at intervals of 16 

 or 18 yards, but refers to this experiment as not having 

 completely answered. From these results he considered 

 the problem unsolved, and he had to seek a system 

 which, " without sacrificing the essential condition of 

 depth, or unduly exceeding that of cost, would be better 

 adapted for thoroughly effecting its object," and after 

 instancing clays as close and deep in other situations 

 said to have been drained by means of 4-feet drains, 

 he asks " Why then should we meet with so much diffi- 

 culty when it only forms part of a more manageable series, 

 and is not unfreqnently of a lessappareut stubborn form V 

 and answers, * It strikes me forcibly that the true solution 

 probably lies in the diversity of climate ; " and his lord- 

 ship thus continues, * To secure the full effect of thorough 

 drainage in clays, there should be not only Svell laid 

 conduits for the water which reaches them," but also 

 subsidiary passages opened through the substance of the 

 close subsoil by means of atmospheric heat and the 

 contraction which ensues from it ; " and after quoting 

 from Mr. Whitley and Mr. Pusey on the difference of 

 climate in Britain, he continues, " If, as Mr. Parkes and 

 others say, the contraction and opening of stiff clays 

 by atmospheric heat is necessary to the efficiency of 

 deep draining, I think I have demonstrated such 

 process in soils cannot be reckoned upon in ordinary 

 years, and indeed can scarcely be said to occur more 

 than once in a quarter of a century. It therefore seems 

 indispensable to devise some system which mav serve to 

 secure the benefit of deep drainage without 'its help," 

 andghis lordship concludes by Iproposing « to draw off 

 effectually and constantly the bottom water from beneath 

 the clay, and from its substance, by means of drains of 

 4 feet every 18 or 20 yards, and to provide a vent for 

 the upper water by cross drains of 2 feet every 8 yards, 

 led mto the 4 feet drains, and which he telis us may be 



sideration, it might be worth while to show the errors 

 into which he has fallen from his inexperience in this 

 respect, and how much he might have saved by a uniform 

 system of parallel deep drainage ; nor will I enter into 

 the mischief which is likely to ensue from bringing side 

 drains of only 2 feet depth into others of 4 feet, and the ' 

 difficulty of giving to such drains a secure junction. 

 These are objections to the plan which every practical 

 drainer will at once see. My object is rather to attack 

 the theory, feeling as I do that the question with land- 

 owners seeking the improvement of their estates will 

 not be one of saving a shilling an acre, but -which plan 

 will most effectually benefit their land ; and to this view 

 I will confine what I have to say. 



As his lordship assigns as the sole reason for adopting 

 so singular a plan of draining, the lesser variation of 

 temperature and the greater amount of rain he has to 

 contend with at Derby in contrast with Bedford, it may 



be well to enquire what this really amounts to 



At Bedford the mean monthly temperature in the 

 year is stated to range between 38 and 64 degrees: 

 whilst at Derby it is between 35 and 55 degrees, and 

 the annual amount of rain between the driest and 

 wettest situations in England is 24 and 47 inches. Were 

 the variations of temperature and of dryness in the 

 year at Derby really no greater than his lordship 

 has described them, it could readily be shown that 

 they are quite sufficient to produce those changes 

 in the condition of the soil which are requite 

 for its cracking sufficiently to make deep drains 

 effectual, but if greater be thought necessarj it 

 will be enough to point out that Lord \VUara- 

 cliffe has been taking, for the purpose of calculating w 

 effect of variations of climate upon sod, the mean m 

 each month's variations, and not the actual highest ; aw 

 lowest temperature of the year, and has overloo <ea w 

 fact that greater variations than lie has allowed in w 

 vear are not unfrequent in the space of 24 hours. 

 Lord Wharncline's table, water would appear nejwro 

 freeze and corn and fruit never to ripen at vev *y, 

 while on the other hand it is well known, not oni) w 

 both these circumstances occur, but that it is absolutely 

 necessary to agriculture in all countries to nave w 

 tions of daily change as well as of season, in ovaerw 

 break and pulverise the clay and bring it mto oraer 

 sowing ; which changes, whether produced by a«era 

 tions of heat and cold, or of wet and evaporation, * 

 productive of shrinkings in the soil sufhcient to p 



dme those cracks which Mr. Parkes has s.io^, 



porosity to m* 



are 



which daily experience proves, 

 stiffest soils. 



gi\ 



re 



I might extend this article by entering ,nt0 . € ^ gfiii i. 

 tions of the effect of evaporation at all seasons , ^ 

 ing the draining, which his lordship has wno j ^ 

 looked, and show that any deficiency of J ^ 



altitude 



be 



ce 



in 



such 



compel 

 tokeS n tW I .feel 



trr 



eftecV 



\ 



may ne more than 

 quicker evaporation which 

 situations; but space is wanting to ^ 



that sufficient has been intimated to satist) ^ ^ 

 ing person of the varving condition °* it f thk 



different seasons, and to show that to a ^ty 



altered condition is at once to allow the lam m 



to 



the 



larger 



of being drained, while with respect to ^ ^ 

 amount of rain in certain situations, an * . a ^ 

 drains, it must be evident that the descent 



jargtf 



quantity of water can have no other en ^^ 



land than to assist in establishing the f^J^iege* 

 them permanent fissures for the escape oi bottom 



bling those found to give vent to springs » 

 of wells hundreds of feet from the surface. ^^ 



We have now to examine the plan rf ^ 



has put before the public as the ™ f u * Ltfihtog f 

 draining, and I will commence by lara *i*' 



various practices which have led to f° * ^appro** 

 tion of principles which meet with Ins lordj I wharDC li» 



According to his own showing, ^ru ^ ^^ 



besan his draining with no settled P^' .' uU m<*°7 



He commenced by tg 1".^ 



of which, by hisj g t0 b^ 



a» d . s n bis 



any experience 



plans of his own, none — , . 



appear to have thoroughly answered ; 



it 

 bout 



regretted, on his own account, tna* ^. tIia t 

 experiments he appears never to to* 



it* 



