40 
On Thoi'ovgh- Draining. 
century past.* The removal of superfluous water from the land hy 
surface drainage, or by land-ditching, appears to have been time out of 
mind an acknowledged principle of good farming, without which all 
applications of manure, or other acts of husbandry, would be rendered 
comparatively valueless and ineffectual. Indeed, it seems to have been 
long regarded as the sine qua non of good farming: and in conversing 
with several old labourers, with the view of learning the practice of 
former times, I have found that tliey were accustomed to the work from 
their boyhood, and that their fathers had been in the habit of engaging 
in the same kind of labour before them. I am not led to suppose from 
this that tlie system was so generally adopted as at the present day, or^ 
that anything like the improved method of drainage bv pipes, tiles, &c., 
were adopted ; but the draining of wet or springy lands by ditches filled 
with wood and straw or stubble has been much practised in this county 
for a long period, and, at the same time that it has increased the 
productiveness of the soil, has tended to improve materially the healthi- 
ness of the climate. 
The districts in Essex in which land-ditching is most general are the 
large extent of the clay soils of the Roothings, on the west and north- 
west of the county, and those portions dispersed in irregular sections, 
and of various extent, in other parts of the county, which are composed 
of gravel, loam, and clay, in different degrees of admixture. 
In the districts which lie upon the substratum of porous and chalky 
clay, or marl, the system of shallow parallel drains filled with wood and 
straw, or straw only, twisted or " scudded," is universally adopted ; and, 
from the porous character of the soil, the water being enabled to find its 
way into the drain on all sides by minute and general percolation, the 
drains are not subject to be washed in or choked, and remain open and 
clear for many years. On such land, where the subsoil is sufficiently 
firm and cohesive, the mole-plough is used with great advantage. The 
drains so formed v. ill sometimes run well for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, 
and when worn out, if the lines originally formed by the mole-plough be 
intersected by drains, cut with the spade, at the depth of two or three 
inches below them, the land is again most effectually relieved of super- 
fluous moisture. 
In those soils composed of irregular beds of gravel and loam, where 
the gravel cropping out upon the loam causes the land-springs to rise 
and speio out upon the surface, drainage by tiles, as well as wood and 
straw, is very generally adopted ; and this would be practised to a much 
greater extent were tiles to be obtained at a lower cost. The introduction 
of tiles at such a price as they can be made by Mr. Beart's, and other 
machines of recent invention, would, in all probability, give a new im- 
* " Mr. Biamstoii's deer-park at Skreeiis," observes Arthur Young in his ' View of 
the Agriculture of Essex,' vol. ii. p. 189, printed in 1807, " was made in 1664, and he 
has reason to know that it was never drained after being made a deer-park, till he did 
it ; in which work the men found evident traces of very ancient drains, and pointed 
them out to liim. Hence it is clear that this practice was known in Essex long before 
the period to which it is sometimes assigned.'' Mr. F. G. Bramston, the present owner 
of Skreens, to whom I showed the above passage, has no means of ascertaining whether 
his grandfather's data were correct. — Bkavbrooke. 
