On the Advantage of Beep Drainage. 



501 



first and for a time, will become inoperative after a lapse of years. 

 Some have doubted whether rain could ever force its way through 

 very strong clay ; but, when channels have been made, every suc- 

 ceeding shower must tend more and more to keep those channels 

 open and also to cause new ones. In this way deep draining may 

 to a certain extent produce the effect of subsoiling; for deep- 

 drained land becomes annually more porous and more accessible 

 to the roots of plants. 



I am, dear sir, very faithfully yours, 



Charles Arbuthnot. 



To James Hudson, Esq. 



Below Mr. Webster's article a note is added by Mr. Pusey. 

 With him I have not the honour to be acquainted, but I know 

 his character sufficiently to respect him greatly. I have under- 

 stood that Mr. Pusey had never himself practised deep draining ; 

 and indeed his note leads me to believe that he was, as he had 

 done before, merely advising caution in draining, and that his 

 observations have not been on drains of his own land. If in this 

 I am correct, he could not have so well known whether the 

 drained land shown to him was underneath and out of sight pro- 

 perly or ill executed. 



Ch. A. 



P.S.' — Since writing the above I have had a letter from Mr. 

 Bennett, in which he says that the shallow drains at Woburn were 

 not by his advice, but upon the recommendation of a person 

 thought an authority in such matters. It will have been seen by 

 the letter above quoted to the Duke of Bedford that the shallow 

 drains were superseded as inefficacious, and, being replaced by 

 deep ones, the land had become drier and sounder to ride upon. 

 Mr. Bennett also states in his letter to me that last year he had 

 put in drains at 11, 15, and 22 yards apart, and at 4, 4 \, and 

 5 feet deep in the same field, and that after the rains of last month 

 there was no perceptible difference, all having been equally effi- 

 cacious. The subsoil in that field, he says, is a very strong clay, 

 interspersed with small veins of sandy loam and gravel, which of 

 course act as so many arteries and feeders to the pipes. 



Thus writes Mr. Bennett, and nothing can be more valuable 

 and conclusive than his testimony in favour of deep drains at 

 wide intervals. 



It would have been unjust to Mr. Bennett if I had not let it 

 be known that he had not been the adviser of shallow drains at 

 Woburn. 



Ch. A. 



Note.— The above letter to Mr. Hudson was written, as the date will 

 show, in October oflast year. I sent it too late for the next publication 



VOL. X. 2 L 



