U nder-Dra inage. 
587 
did not — a load and a half per acre for the London market, that would 
of course give him 300 loads of hay. It would occupy just a year to 
take the hay to market, reckoning the cartage at a load per day. If two 
loads per market-day were carted that would make no diiference in the 
result. Suppose further that a load of manure per day were taken 
back from London, that would be 300 loads in the course of the year ; 
and, assuming that the manm-e is put on the land directly it arrived 
(which every practical farmer knew could not be done) at the rate of 
10 loads per acre, 30 acres of land would be manured in the year. 
Thus it would require seven times the quantity that was taken away 
to manure the whole 200 acres ; and though a particular field near 
the road might look very well, much of the land near it must be in a 
sad condition. Such was the result of growing water-grasses. Let 
the water, however, be got out of the soil, and artificial manure applied 
to the grass, and a great iinjjrovement would soon be visible. He was 
speaking from experience, having under-drained some of his meadow- 
land, and dressed it first with farmyard manure, and afterwards with 
artificial manure. He could af&rm, that not only was the quality of 
the hay considerably improved, but that he got not a pound less than 
he did previously. The Middlesex farmers admitted the advantage of 
under-draining in reference to feeding. They said that if they fed 
stock they would benefit by draining, in the quality of the beef and 
mutton made on the farm. But many of them could not purchase a 
sufficient number of cattle and sheep, and hence they persisted in the 
impoverishing system of producing hay almost solely for the London 
market. If they would use one half of the land for hay-making and 
the other half for feeding, they would, he believed, soon be in a much 
better position. What was the consequence of the undrained con- 
dition of the land in relation to stock r Why, that they saw there the 
worst possible cattle to be found in England and the worst possible 
kind of sheep. This arose from the circiunstance that the occupiers 
had a large quantity of gi-asses which they wanted to clear off in the 
autumn. Many of them could not afford to buy sheep to feed off the 
land. What did they fall back upon ? The breeding of lambs from 
Welsh ewes. They put a number of these evv'es in winter to Leicester 
tups ; they lost many of the animals during the winter months, and 
in the end they did not find the amoimt of profit which they had 
expected. He believed that if the Harrow district were thoroughly 
under-drained, not only would the farmers have a better quality of 
hay, biit the quantity would not be at all diminished, provided the land 
were under good management (Hear, hear). 
Mr. Fbeke said the names of Mr. Parkes and Mr. Smith of 
Deanston, to whom the public were so much indebted for the parallel 
system, had been very properly mentioned by Mr. Denton ; but there 
Avas another name which certainly ought not to be forgotten in a 
discussion relating to the draining of porous soils ; that of Mr. 
Elkington. He had arrived at one conclusion from recent inquiries 
into the drainage of other countries, especially of Italy, namely, that 
partial and incomplete works for the removal of water very much 
