340 
Agricultural Meteorology. 
their traditions from each other. Pliny abounds with rules for 
the government of agricultural operations by observations of the 
moon's phases, such as were no doubt strictly adhered to by the 
most skilful husbandmen of his day. In France the opinion 
formerly prevailed, as recorded by Pliny, that trees should be 
felled only in the wane ; and the old ordonnances forestieres 
enjoined this accordingly. In Demerara and some of the West 
India islands, Mr. Montgomery Martin states that there are 
woods which, if cut down during the increase, can be easily split 
and soon rot ; but if cut in the wane, can with difficulty be riven 
and are extremely enduring ; and the same was stated respecting 
the Brazils to M. A. St. Hilaire, of the French Academy, from 
whom M. Arago derived his information. 
These remarks have already trespassed too much on the space 
due to more interesting matter in the pages of this Journal. 
M. Gasparin's three volumes, while they add considerably to 
the stock of our general knowledge in husbandry, confer ad- 
ditional importance upon it by their suggestive and enquiring 
character. The comparison, of course, real or supposed, either 
in meteorology, physiological chemistry, or any other department 
of practical agriculture with the results attributed to them, will, 
in the end, increase our own experience: and while it promotes 
a habit of investigation among agriculturists, it will eventually 
transfer many of the unexplained phenomena of nature and culti- 
vation from the region of mere inductive reasoning into the 
domain of recorded truth. 
Ashley Combe, Somerset, Sept. 29ih. 
XVI. — Practical E.rpcriments on the Air-drainage of Land. 
By Simon Hutchinson, Land-Agent. 
On the 10th of February, 1846, 1 recommended to Lord Brown- 
low's tenants in a pamphlet the construction of air-drains, or 
connecting head-drains, in addition to the ordinary parallel 
drains — a practice at that time entirely new to the public. 
I<]xperience having confirmed my opinions as to the advantages 
of this practice, it may not be uninterestino; to state the result of 
one of the many successful experiments I have made to test its 
practical utility. 
The field to which 1 shall refer is in the occu})alion of Mr. 
Stafford, of Marnham, near Newark on Trent, and consists of 
ten acres of strong loamy soil, upon a clay subsoil. It was under- 
drained by Mr. Stafford in 1843 by twenty-five parallel drains. 
