On the Drainage of Land. 



281 



Total Increase in Value collected. 



Lands underdrained, present value 

 „ original value 



Estimated saving by the mill 

 Increase in value of water-meadows 



Being an increased annual value of 



£. s. d. 

 . 689 13 1 

 . 254 10 9 



435 2 4 



. 400 0 0 

 . 178 0 0 



£1013 2 4 



resulting only from draining 467 acres, and employment of the 

 drain- water over 89 acres of land : affording a clear annual interest 

 on the outlay of full 37 per cent. ! 



The subs oil- draining, or mole-plough, is a valuable implement 

 in the operation of drainage ; and although the inventors of the 

 various denominations now in use each claim different degrees of 

 merit, yet they all tend to the same object— that of loosening the 

 tenacious substratum, and thus allowing both the water to filter 

 through it, and the roots of plants to spread themselves in search 

 of nourishment. There is, however, much difference of opinion 

 amongst those who have employed it : Some eminent farmers 

 maintaining that it is lost labour, while others^ equally eminent, 

 think that no system of management is complete without it."* 

 There have been, indeed, some extraordinary instances mentioned 

 in the ' Transactions of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society ' of 

 conflicting testimony on the subject, made by men of equal credi- 

 bility, whose experiments have shown totally opposite results ; but 

 it would seem that this must have arisen from the fact that, although 

 the land upon which their trials were made appeared to be equally 

 stiff, yet the soils were not of the same quality : the one being so 

 much more clayey than the other, that it would run together in a 

 wet season without exhibiting any symptom of having been under- 

 ploughed. The soil should, therefore, be analysed, to ascertain 

 the quantity of alumen which it contains ; for if so large a portion 

 as 40 per cent, of that cohesive substance be found united with 

 the other earths of which it is composed, the operation of sub- 

 soiling, without draining, will not, it may be feared, be perma- 

 nently successful. 



If, however, the intention b.e merely to break through that 

 indurated mass of matter termed moor-band," or pan," which 

 is so frequently found imbedded between the upper and the lower 

 layers of the soil, the plough alone may have a decidedly good 

 effect ; but if the lower layer should contain so much tenacious 

 clay as to be retentive uf water, no benefit can be derived from it, 

 unless it be connected with drainage. Of this, indeed, a remark- 



* Brit. Farm. Mag. for April, 1841, p. 109 ; and this Journal, vol. ii. art. 2. 



