130 
On Deep Draining. 
pipes in the furrows were IJ inch, and those in the main drains 
were 3 inches in diameter. 
My bailiff wrote to me, I being In London, that after the rain 
the water rushed rapidly out of the new main drains, but that 
none came from the old shallow drains into their main drains. 
The paddocks soon became perfectly dry, which, as I have already 
said, was far indeed from being the case with the shallow drains. 
I am now so convinced of the efficacy of deep drainage that, 
although the whole of the land I occupy has been drained — partly 
with tiles and partly with stones, and, as was thought, to a tole- 
rable depth — I intend to cross the old drains with deeper ones, 
in order to do all in my power to free the land from excess of water. 
The main drains recently made ceased to run as soon as the 
land became quite dry, which shows that it was not kept wet by 
springs. 
Yours very sincerely, 
Chas. Arbuthnot. 
P.S. — Instead of using pipes of 11 inch diameter, I should 
have preferred those for the furrows to have been only 1 inch, 
being now convinced that inch-pipes would have answered every 
desired purpose ; but inch-pipes were not, I believe, to be pro- 
cured in my neighbourhood. 
Although I was from home when the experiment was made, 
I can answer for the correctness of my bailifTs account, as he is 
always most accurate in what he states ; and as, moreover, he was 
—till the trial had been made and had succeeded — rather startled 
at the notion of draining at the depth of 4 feet. 
The paddocks were, as I told you, old grass — originally, as it 
appears, under the plough ; and laid down in such barbarous 
times that the ridges were not only very high, but also very 
unequal in width; some being 45 feet, and others only 25 feet 
broad — which I mention to account for the irregular distances 
asunder at which my bailiff was obliged to place the deep drains. 
C. A. 
Apsley House, April 21, 1845. 
Mr. Arbuthnot has just confirmed to me, from his personal 
inspection of these 7 acres, the accuracy of the foregoing state- 
ment in every particular. He had the opportunity of inspecting 
the condition of the land, and the action of the drains, both during 
and after very heavy and continuous rains. He caused a hole to 
be dug 5 feet deep about the centre of one of the ridges, and the 
water was found to stand at somewhat more than 4 feet below the 
surface. It appears that, at this depth, there are occasional inter- 
changes in the subsoil between clay and chalk with flint ; whereas 
