142 



CASSELL'S POPULAE GAPDEXIXa. 



GEOUND OPERATIONS. 



DRAINAGE. 



DEAIXAGtE is the most vitally important of all 

 the many operations that can be performed on 

 or in the ground. Among the latest discoveries in 

 the many-sided art of cultivation, its theory and 

 practice are as yet most imperfectly understood. 

 Most that is known on the subject, not only by the 

 general public, but even by those who live upon and 

 by the land, is that drainage is a short and easy 

 method of laying wet land dry. This is far less 

 than haK the truth. Other portions of it may be 

 stated thus : drainage keeps land moist and warm, 

 and by setting or keeping the water it contains, or 

 receives, in motion, invests it with solvent poAvers 

 and nutritive functions of the most valuable char- 

 acter. Water at rest — that is, stagnant — kills, by 

 drowTiing out all the productive force of even the best 

 land. Water in motion develops and augments the 

 fertility of the very poorest soils, while it unlocks, 

 and adds to, the food-stores already existing in the 

 richest and best. 



Cultivators of fields and gardens alike have been 

 too much in the habit of looking upon water as a 

 nuisance to be rid of at any cost. G-rasping the 

 broad fact that drainage had transformed some of the 

 worst lands into the best, they have run their drains 

 where they were not needed, and have been vastly 

 astonished at their failures. Water that was in the 

 process of being gradually, but surely, drained off 

 by natuj'e through her mjnriad outlets into the 

 subsoil, carrying enrichment with it at every stage 

 of its journey, was hurried off through new channels 

 — the drains — into the nearest ditch or river, and 

 nature's machinery for the amelioration and enrich- 

 ment of the land thus rudely stopped. Almost the 

 first step to the comprehension of the true theory and 

 practice of drainage is recognition of the fact that 

 water in motion, the free gift of nature, is the most 

 powerful and beneficent of all natural forces, to be 

 utilised to the very uttermost. It is the cultivator's 

 capital — sinews of war — in the liberation and utili- 

 sation of the natural force of the soil, and should, 

 therefore, be skilfully used. Like other capital, it is 

 apt to run into aggregates, accumulate into masses, 

 and the land-drainer's object and aim should be to 

 effect its more equal distribution. In very few 

 localities in this country is there really much excess 

 of water for cultural purposes. The evil lies in its 

 condition, not its amount. Give it motion, and jn 

 not a few gardens, especially those devoted to the 

 culture of vegetables, the more water the better. 

 Xcr is this to be wondered at, for water is not only 

 the builder up of vegetation, but it also constitutes 

 from eighty to ninety per cent, of the materials — 



being to a very large extent not only water, but stone 

 and mortar as well. But as reasonably expect a 

 house or mansion to arise in the night — when the 

 builders are fast asleep — as vegetation to thrive on 

 water-logged land. In the latter case the active 

 agent is not only asleep but dead, and only drainage 

 can restore it to life, by setting it in motion and 

 marrying the water to its better half, that other 

 great natural life-giving, constructive, and solvent 

 force, the air. Link these together through our 

 drains, and set them out on their endless journey 

 of discovery and production, and oiu' gardens can 

 hardly fail to be covered with plenty, fiUed with 

 fragrance, and adorned with beauty. 



If all this be true, and it is, then the true theory 

 and practice of drainage may be stated thus : It lays 

 land dry ; it keeps it moist ; it makes it warm ; it 

 frees, distributes, and adds to its wealth or richness ; 

 it improves its texture; it adds to its depth, and 

 makes its cultivation more easy and pleasant, as well 

 as more profitable. 



Drainage Lays Land Dry.— The term is used 

 comparatively, and simply means sufficiently diy for 

 the successful cultivation of garden crops. Absolute 

 dryness is neither possible nor desirable. But, on 

 the other hand, it may be affirmed that no land that 

 is undrained by nature or art is fit for horticultural 

 purposes. Further, most land, unless it be a fen, or 

 water-meadow, or a swamp, is already more or less 

 thoroughly drained by nature. Faults and up- 

 heavals of strata, enormous beds of gravel, deposits 

 of shells, pebbles, chalk, the regular or more erratic 

 changes of level, the up-towering of mountains and 

 hills, the deep depressions of plains, these are 

 samples of nature's gigantic method of drainage ; 

 and the leaping waterfall, the sparkling rivulet, 

 the broad brimming river, the ever full and 

 mighty sea, are her tributary and gigantic out- 

 lets for the overflux water of the earth. . Hence, 

 natural drainage is after all the major note 

 of the subject. Man in this matter, as in so 

 many others, originates little or nothing. He is but 

 a futile imitator at best, and the more perfect his 

 imitation the greater his success. His main and 

 arterial drainage are but babyish imitations at the 

 most of the deep broad rivers and tributary streams 

 that cut or plough their silver lines of beauty and 

 utility all over the earth's surface, thus converting 

 it into a reticulated pattern of verdant green and 

 glistening silver. And though on the earth's culti- 

 vated surface, in field or garden, the green largely 

 predominates, could the whole of nature's drainage 

 system be laid bare before our eyes, the water 

 lifted by innumerable hands (sunbeams) into the aii', 

 r.nd the millions upon millions of trickhng droplets 



