152 
On the Quantity of Rain- Water, 
A study of the results registered in tliese Tables puts us in 
possession of many other facts of import to the agriculturist, as 
enforcing the warning — which experience cannot but have taught 
him— to adopt every appliance at his command for placing his 
soil in such condition as to derive the greatest benefit and the 
least evil from elemental influences ; for, so variable are the 
seasons, that no average can properly display the changing amounts 
of meteorological quantities and forces. It seems, from Table I , 
that the discharge of water by drains occurs, on the average, dur- 
ing seven months of the year. In 1840 and 1841, however, rain 
was in excess over evaporation only during four months ; though 
in the first year 21tV inches of rain fell, whilst in the second the 
earth received 32^*0^ inches, or 50 per cent, more rain in the latter 
than in the former year ; yet the soil was equally dry in both 
years on the mean of the six hottest months, for the evaporative 
force was able to relieve the soil of all the rain that fell, though 
the quantities were so widely different, being 15t*t inches in 1841, 
and only 9tV inches in 1840. But, turning to the six colder 
months of the same years, we find the case reversed, for the pro- 
portionate evaporation in 1840 was double that in 1841. It ap- 
pears, too, that in 1836, when the quantity of rain was only about 
one inch less than the maximum in 1841, the force of evapora- 
tion was 13 per cent, less, and water filtered through the gauge in 
various proportions, during every month of that year, and the 
same in 1839. Thus, in preparing soil to receive the utmost be- 
nefit and the least evil from rain, however slight or excessive, it 
should be put into a state to refuse holding water in excess, but 
be capable of absorbing humidity freely and retaining it deeply ; 
whilst the drains should admit water with facility, and convey it 
away with dispatch. 
The quantities of rain and filtration denoted by Mr. Dickin- 
son's gauges are daily registered, and this record has enabled me 
to ascertain a remarkable coincidence between the action of the 
Dalton gauge and that of Mr. Hammond's inch-pipe drains, as 
reported to the Royal Agricultural Society, in the last Journal, 
p. 375. It appears, according to the rain-gauge, that TVjths of an 
inch of rain fell on the 7th and 8th November last ; and by the 
Dalton gauge, that on the 9th iVirths, or nearly the whole of this 
quantity, had passed through it. It was on the 9th tliat I in- 
spected the drainage of Mr. Hammond's farm, recording the fact 
that, after a rain of about 12 hours' duration on the 7tli, I found 
the drains on the 9th, in a nine acre piece, 3 feet deep, just 
dribbling, and those in a hop-ground adjoining, 4 feet deep, 
exhausted ; Mr. Hammond having observed, ])reviously to my 
arrival, that the greatest stream at the outfall of each drain 
amounted to about the half-bore of the inch pipes. The times 
