274 



On the Drainage of Land. 



of means and education, who had been engaged in the civil war, 

 to turn their attention to farming on the cessation of hostilities ; 

 and a still further impulse was added to it by the subsequent in- 

 troduction of the turnip husbandry, which, in a great degree, 

 altered the previous system of culture, by the progressive ad- 

 vancement of alternate corn and green crops, to which is chiefly 

 owing our present eminent station as agriculturists. 



The turnip husbandry, however, demands a comparatively dry 

 soil ; for one of the greatest advantages attendant upon the growth 

 of the root arises from the power of having it eaten ofP by sheep 

 upon the ground, and thus effectually manuring it without ex- 

 pense. The propriety of adopting this practice became apparent 

 from the evident increase which it occasioned in the crops of 

 grain, as well as by the consequent increase of rent justly de- 

 manded by landlords for soils of a description adapted, either by 

 nature or by art, to its operation ; and this, together with the cer- 

 tainty that land chilled by stagnant water can never make a pro- 

 fitable return for the labour of tillage, induced a greater attention 

 to drainage. Still, the difficulty at that time of conducting it 

 scientifically, and the failure in several instances of the principles 

 put forward on the subject by Elkington, added to the sums of 

 money thrown away in unskilful management, caused a temporary 

 check to its general use. Farmers, however, having learned 

 from experience that manures, whether caustic or putrescent, do 

 not impart their intended benefit to wet soils, while those laid 

 upon gravels, loams, or land of a light porous nature (if not rest- 

 ing upon an impervious subsoil), act to the full extent of then' 

 powers upon vegetation, are at length convinced that the only 

 means to be relied on for the correction of this serious evil is — to 

 render the ground dry by drainage. 



It is, indeed, so essential to the due eflPect of all kinds of 

 manure, that in the application of lime it is indispensably requi- 

 site not only that the ground should be in a dry condition, but 

 also that the lime be laid on it in the driest season : bone-dust is 

 now well known to be ineffectual on wet soils ; and even stable- 

 dung has comparatively less power on land in a humid state than 

 on that which has been drained."^ 



* " Although lime readily decomposes vegetable matter, it yet only de- 

 composes it advantageously in dry soil, or soil rendered dry by draining, the 

 moisture in wet land rendering it effete before it has time to act chemically 

 on the vegetable matter in the soil. Before the application of lime in any 

 circumstances land should therefore be thoroughly drained." — P. 175. — 

 Quart. .Journal of Agriculture, N.S., No. ,38. 



" Whatever may be the chemical action of bone-dust on soils, we can 

 assert with confidence that bone-dust will impart no richness to any kind of 

 soil unless the land is either naturally dry or has been drained, and the 



