On Tharouijh-Drninhicj. 
31 
stubble costs nothing, but robs the muck-hill. When heath or 
peat are within a day's cartasje they are used. I used to cart 
heath a distance of 20 miles, occupying two entire days therein ; 
I now cart peat a distance of 33 miles, my waggon being out 
three entire days.* 
As for durability, I cannot do better than quote the words of 
my friend Mr. Moore of Badley : — 
" In my occupation of upwards of 500 acres I have not more than 40 
upon which drains are not required ; all the remainder, viz. nearly 500 
acres, have been once drained by me, and a considerable portion of it 
twice. I have not more than 5 acres whereon I have used tiles ; some 
of which I have also twice tile-drained, in consequence of a deposit 
accumulated of a sandy nature. The soil in my occupation is very 
variable, for even in the same field I have a subsoil of light loamy sand, 
very strong clay, and a gravelly red loam, so full of stones that some 
parts of the drains are obliged to be made by a pickaxe and other iron 
tools previously to using the narrow draining-spade. I have this year 
(1843) drained where 95 ljushels of large stones per acre have been dug 
out of the drains and collected. At the time I am writing this I am 
draining a field of 8 acres, and I find it is twenty years since I drained 
it before. This field contains all the various soils before mentioned ; 
and my men are using in many parts pickaxes, &c., to get through the 
stone. Although I have exceeded my usual time in renewing draining 
in this field, I have not observed one of the old drains actually blown or 
choked ; but, as a matter of course, they are in many places very nearly 
worn out ; yet in other parts of the field, where the soil is a strong loam, 
the drains are in very good condition. I am by experience convinced 
that where under-draining is performed, as in the usual manner prac- 
tised in this neighbourhood, i.e. the drains first drawn by a plough 8 or 
10 inches deep, dug 10 inches with the broad spade and 10 inches with 
the narrow, filling the top of the narrow drain with stubble; the drains 
will last from twelve to twenty years." 
Mr. Moore uses no other material than what is provincially 
called haulm (stubble) for filling up. 
I can mention a curious illustration of the past practice of 
under-draining in England: — My friend, Mr. Anderson, had 
occasion to drain a field, and in doing so cut across the " old 
drains," out of which he took several bushels of " bullocks' horns:" 
upon inquiry he found that the field formerly belonged to a 
"tanner;" but no one in the parish remembers the "tanner." 
And upon my repeating the circumstance very lately, I heard of 
another instance of filling up with bullocks' horns. 
I have desci'ibed as well as I am able, and with a minuteness 
which will appear trifling to many, the practice of draining which 
* Peat sells at the rate of 6*. per thousand ; eight score of draining to 
the acre requires two thousand peat. 
