260 
Gn Draining. 
There are some causes of stoppage to subterraneatn drains, 
though fortunately few and limited in their extent, with which 
every drainer should be acquainted, and prepared to encounter 
and vanquish, as he best may. The first and most extensive evil 
of this kind to which I will refer, is the deposit of a substance of 
an unctuous sticky nature, in drains laid in soils containing much 
ferruginous matter. On this point I was particularly questioned 
by his Grace the Duke of Richmond, chairman of a Select Com- 
mittee of the House of Lords, appointed last year " to inquire into 
the expediency of a legislative enactment being introduced to en- 
able possessors of entailed estates to charge such estates with a 
sum, to be limited for the purpose of draining and otherwise per- 
manently improving the same." I was asked, " Do not stone 
drains invariably clog if there is water in them impregnated with 
iron ? " My reply was, " I have no doubt that the ferruginous 
matter, such as I have often seen accompany the water of drain- 
age, would stop up stone drains;" and, in conversation, his Grace 
informed me, that he had estates in Scotland infested to such a 
degree with ferruginous matter, that the deposit of iron in drains 
seemed an almost invincible obstacle to the drainage of these lands. 
Since that time, and in various parts of England, my attention 
has been practically and specially required to discover the cause, 
and, if possible, a cure for this disease. It may not be thought 
tedious that I narrate what I know on this subject, as there are 
thousands of acres of land, the drainage of which depends on dis- 
covering some means of rendering it permanent. 
When applied to by Sir Robert Peel last autumn to drain some 
portions of his estates at Drayton Manor — and he knew that my 
system consisted in the use of small pipes in preference to other 
conduits — he earnestly called my attention to this cause of stop- 
page, which had been a continued source of vexation, expense, 
and defeat, in draining the park and other parts of the property. 
Sir Robert accompanied me throughout the grounds to be first 
drained, and showed me the evidences of this red deposit at the 
mouths of drains, and the spewing masses of it on ditch banks, 
&c., leaving me to deal with the enemv according to my judg- 
ment. It will be conceived that I felt the full force of the diffi- 
culty, and there was but little experience, so far as I knew, of the 
use of small pipes in soils similarly infested. Yet I had confi- 
dence in pipes, as preferable to all other conduits, from the com- 
pression of the run of water into the smallest required volume, 
and therefore as more likely to prevent deposits from occurnng 
or accumulating than larger conduits. I was acquainted with one 
case, and only one, in which very small pipes, an inch bore, had 
been uscfl, and have continued to act well for several years, with- 
out obstruction, in a boggy soil charged with iron, thougli the 
