On Drainivg. 
253 
riddled, screened, and strained out into the land, leaving: the rich- 
nesse and the leanesse sliding away from it." In another place 
he replies to the objectors of floatinp: that it will breed the rush, 
the flag:g:, and mareblab ; " only make thy drayning trenches deep 
enougfh and not too far off thy floating course, and Tie warrant it 
they drayn away that under moisture, fylth, and venom as afore- 
said, that maintains them, and then believe me, or deny Scripture, 
which I hope thou darest not, as Bildad said unto Job, ' Can the 
rush grow without mire, or the flagg without water?' Job. viii. 12. 
That interrogation plainly shewes that the rush cannot groa-, the 
water being taken from the root ; for it is not the moystnesse upon 
the surface of the land, for then every shower should increase the 
rush, but it is that which lieth at the root, which, drayned aw<ay at 
the bottom, leaves it naked and barren of relief." 
The author frequently returns to this charge, explaining over and 
over again the necessity of removing what we call bottom-water, and 
which he well designates as tilth and venom, observing, " I am 
forced to use repetitions of some things, because of the suitable- 
ness of the things to which they are applied; as also because of 
the slowness of people's apprehension of them, as appears by the 
non practice of them, — -the which, wherever you are so drayning 
and trenching, you shall rarely find few or none of them wrought 
to the bottom." As to the distance between the draining and 
floating trenches, he prescribes no certain rule, saying, "If the 
land is sounder and drier, or lieth more descending, thou mayest 
let it (the water) run the broader; and as thy land is moyst, sad; 
rushey, and levell, let it run the less breadtli or compasse ;" tluis 
exhibiting a far more correct and intimate acquaintance with his 
subject than is often to be found among the water meadow arti- 
ficers of the present day, my opinion being that many of these 
meadows have been converted into swamps, for want of a sys- 
tematic and deep under-drainage. Our author gives a most just 
account of the cause of those isolated boggy places and swamps 
so often formed on the slopes of hills, and at their foot, and 
describes the mode of treating them, so as to effect a perfect cure, 
which coincides with the best practice of the present day ; but I 
fear to be tedious, and therefore refrain from this quotation. 
For all drainage purposes he reprehends shallow trenches, 
observing, in respect to bog-drainage — But for these common 
and many trenches, oft times crooked too, that men usually make 
in their boggy grounds, some one foot, some two, never having 
respect to the cause or matter that maketh the bog ; I say, away 
with them as a great piece of folly, lost labour, and spoyle, which 
1 desire as well to preserve the reader from, as to put him upon a 
more profitable experiment ; as to destroying the bog, it doeth 
just nothing, only taking away a little water which falls from the 
