Under-Drainage. 
583 
ncnt in forewarning this Society of approaching evils, and leaving the 
matter there. I feel I caimot do better than close this paper with a 
passage I WTote more than twenty years ago, when struggling to 
obtain the first Act which founded the Drainage Commission. It is 
this : " If it is thought fit that each owner and occupier of land sliould 
add their proportionate quota to our wealth as an agricultural nation 
by the application of science to their calling, then it is not only equi- 
table, but it is imperatively necessary, that a general law should be 
laid down for the clearing and maintenance of outfalls, and that a 
systematic order should be adopted with a due regard to the water of 
drainage as discharged. We have seen the evil of disorganisation in 
the sewerage of towns, and \^'e are about to apply a remedy. No 
better result will follow the operation of any partial system for 
draining land : apathy will prevail in some cases, prejudice in others ; 
and as each district, when drained, w-ill be independent of sm-rounding 
ones, a medley of works, as specific in themselves as dissimilar in 
construction, will start, in defiance of order and contempt of system, 
into inefficient existence." This is precisely our present position. 
Mr. Dext, M.P., said allusion having been made by Mr. Denton to 
the works which were being carried on upon his father's estate, he 
Avished to say a few words respecting them. Those works had only 
been in progress since this time last year, and therefore there had 
scarcely been time to judge what was likely to be the effect. The 
district was a very wet one, and a very impleasant district to ride 
over. It consisted of an immense variety of soils. There were under 
drainage about 35 acres of grass land, of a strong, tenacious character. 
In other fields there were soils running fi'om quicksands into clays, 
with a considerable quantity of stone Since his father bought the 
estate he had drained to a considerable extent, and foimd in the soil a 
number of stone drains of older date at good depth, which were 
always full of water, having no proper outlets. During the last ten 
years he had himseK drained a great deal, generally on the parallel 
system ; but he was imable to go as deep as he should like to have 
done, because the outfalls of the natui'al l^rook running into the river 
Nidd were not adequate. The first work of the Drainage Company 
was to enlarge these outfalls, and this enlargement had had a con- 
siderable efiect on the neighbom'ing soil, drying test-holes at a distance 
of 40 or 50 yards. The particular field to which Mr. Denton alluded 
he had just taken into his own hands. Part of it had been for two 
years fallow, because the tenant thought it hardly orth while to grow 
a crop. It was drained upon Mr. Denton's system, with, test-holes. 
He watched the drains, which were placed at various depths, very 
carefully. At first they seemed to work satisfactorily ; but when 
heavy rains came in January, in walking over the field he found it as 
bad as ever. Mr. Denton came down to inspect the works at a time 
when there was a very heavy flood ; and when he saw the state of the 
field, he did not seem at all comfortable. That gentleman's statement 
as to the rapidity with which the river rose and fell was quite correct. 
One day the water in the outfall would be 6 feet deep, and a few hom"S 
after not 6 inches. This field was sown with wheat, and on the 3rd of 
