284 



On the Drainage of Lcmd. 



business professionally, will seriously question ; for irrigation adds 

 so much to the springs that, in many cases, the drainage has to be 

 done twice over. 



It cannot be doubted that, if all superfluous moisture be re- 

 moved from the ground, it will promote healthy vegetation, and 

 in a great degree prevent the recurrence of that frequent injury 

 to which the flocks of farmers are exposed by the rot. The 

 herbage will also be found so much richer, that the same quan- 

 tity of hay will yield a greater amount of nourishment to live 

 stock ; and, if sheep be fed upon the pasture, it will strengthen 

 the staple of the wool. Nor is this all : it also checks those 

 baneful exhalations which cause the climate to be so dangerous 

 in the fenny districts, and thus renders it, in every point of wealth, 

 health, and comfort, a truly national object; which, although it 

 may be viewed as a secondary consideration by those who look 

 solely to self-interest, yet cannot be treated with total disregard.* 



These observations may perhaps be thought needless ; for the 

 advantages arising to the soil from its amelioration, by thorough 

 under -ground drainage, are now so justly appreciated by its occu- 

 piers, that they universally consider it as the standard basis of all 

 essential improvements in the land, and the main-spring of what may 

 be distinctively termed Good Husbandry.'' But so much 

 depends upon the nature of the soil and subsoil, and the inclina- 

 tion of the strata, as well as the various localities of the lands 

 intended to be drained, that it is difficult to lay down rules for the 

 process. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that they do not 

 agree as to the best modes of effecting it : some using stone, or 

 rubble, brushwood, peat, turf, or any substance which may be at 

 hand and obtained at trifling cost, and filling those " rumbling 

 drains," as they are called, with rubbish ; without calling in the 

 aid of a practised land-surveyor to lay them down at the proper 

 distances, depths, and levels, to render them efficient ; — ima- 

 gining that in saving a little expense they are gainers ; though, in 



stance is mentioned of a large tract of land, which was constantly fed during 

 fifteen years by ewes and lambs, without any symptom of rot ; but after 

 .being irrigated and partially drained, although a great improvement was 

 made in tlie quantity and quality of the herbage, yet, so far as the rot is 

 concerned, it has been equally fatal to every sheep fed upon it. 



* '* The hurtful effect of rime, or hoar-frost, on vegetation, is a circum- 

 stance familiar to all who have had experience of cold elevated districts, or 

 of lower lands subject to exhalations, and is found, even in the warmest 

 seasons, to be productive of serious inconvenience to the growing crops, and 

 that chiefly at the period when the grain is approaching to its maturer state. 

 This evil, it may be said, has been removed by drainage, and is now so little 

 felt, that the grain produced in the very hollows has for many years escaped 

 the smallest perceptible injury from this cause." See Black's "Account of 

 the Drainage of an Estate in Berwickshire." — Prize Essays of the Highland 

 Soc, N.S., vol. i. p. 234. 



