On the Drainage of Land. 
329 
this is a cheap kind of draining, it is one that perhaps requires 
rather more care taken with it than most others, so it is requisite 
to have trusty men to do it, as well ramming in the filling is a 
very particular part of it ; and if the water stands on the drains after 
rain when it is done, it is a sign it is done well ; do not therefore be 
alarmed, and think your land will not drain, but just go and look 
at the mouth of it, and if no water runs out, then you may well 
feel alarmed ; but you will surely find to the contrary. JBut some 
wet clay-land requires a dry, hot summer before it will receive 
the full benefit from draining. I will state a fact in proof. I 
clay-drained in the winter 1840, a very wet, sour piece of pas- 
ture-land, a black moory soil on a soft clay, which appeared to 
drain at the time as well as I could wish ; in the spring of 1841 
I broke it up, and planted it with turnips, feeding them off at the 
fall of the year, which you will recollect was extremely wet 
through the fall and winter, and the land was as wet as if there 
had not been a drain on the piece, still all the drains ran well ; 
but the rain falling in such continual quantities, came faster than 
the nature of the soil would admit it into the drains. After the 
turnips were off, I planted wheat on part of the piece, which was 
rather a thin plant from the wet ; knowing the drains were all 
perfect, and that only a dry summer was required to make them 
act effectually, I did not hoe the wheat in the spring, although 
it would have benefited the crop, because I would not raise a 
mould to prevent the weather having full effect on the soil ; as we 
all know the wetter land is in winter the more it will crack in 
summer ; and this summer being a thoroughly dry one, it has had 
the expected effect, and the land is now in as dry. and healthy a 
state as one could wish. A part of the piece was tilled for 
turnips again this last spring, and there being a good quantity of 
mould prevented the subsoil from being cracked by the summer 
heat, so that this winter that part has been as wet for a short time as 
it was last year in proportion to the quantity of rain, while the other 
part, as I said before, is dry and healthy. Now supposing I had 
drained this piece with tiles or stone, and filled in with porous 
soil up to the top, that would not have drained the ground much 
better ; it certainly would have prevented the water from lying 
on the surface immediately adjoining the drains; but the land 
being ploughed level, the water would not have run into them 
from the surface, but must have found its way into them in the 
same manner as into the clay-drains. Had the ground lain in 
high-ridged lands, I grant that the case would be somewhat dif- 
ferent, as this shape would force the water to one particular part. 
The conclusion I come to is, that tile or stone are preferable for 
the first year or two, especially on high-ridged land ; but that 
after the land has had a dry summer or two clay draining is equally 
