TOR COLONISTS AND EMIGRANTS. 
135 
well, cleared of roots and weeds, and all sorts 
of foulness; and if poor, well manured, and the 
manure at once ploughed into the soil, that it 
rnay not be wasted by evaporation. 
DRAINING. 
This operation is intimately connected with 
your supply of water ; we have already ex- 
plained that you should make an excavation 
at the lowest part of the ground, or at least 
at such place or places in which the water is 
inclined to stand: this may not be the lowest; 
it may be a hollow, where the soil is clayey 
or retentive, and therefore the best of all 
places for an excavation. If there be no such 
place, you are already advised to excavate at 
the lowest part ; make then deep ditches, say 
four feet deep, leading into it from other parts 
of the ground, so that they have a slight 
descent all the way. These ditches should be 
along the lower sides of the cultivated plots, 
and may be found useful as boundary ditches 
to part one portion from another. The soil 
taken out in forming the ditches will make a 
bank, an effectual fence against cattle. When 
the ditches are made at the lower side or ends 
of the ground, to lead into the excavation 
intended as a receptacle for water, form the 
drains from the highest ground as straight 
down to the ditches as you can bring them. 
The drains ought not to be more than two 
rods apart, and it may be that when these are 
formed in some grounds, they will not be 
found sufficient ; for there are swampy and 
clayey lands that require them as near as one 
rod apart ; it is however quite as well to try 
two rods first. These drains ought to be 
three feet six inches deep, and cut down in the 
form of a narrow V, and they must be set 
about carefully, in the following manner : — - 
First dig with a common spade fifteen or eigh- 
teen inches wide and one foot- deep ; next 
take a narrow spade to make the next spit, 
chopping down the sides very smooth and 
even, but sloping so that at the bottom of the 
second spit it will not be more than seven or 
eight inches wide, or if cleanly done not much 
more than six inches ; then use a regular 
draining tool, which is a narrow spade that 
tapers to three inches wide. After the drain 
is thus cleared out three feet deep, you use a 
proper draining scoop, and go six inches deeper, 
down to almost a point. Be very particular 
as to clearing out all the crumbs, so as to 
have everything smooth, that the water may 
have a clear run. In all this work you 
must begin at the lowest part and work up- 
wards, that the water may run away from you. 
The drains being cleared out, you have next 
to consider of some material for preventing 
the earth from stopping them up again when 
you return it to its place. In England there 
is no difficulty in procuring tiles, but in the 
colonies we must use what we can get; large 
stones that will not reach the bottom will be 
effective, but the material most likely to be at 
hand is wood, such as the branches of trees 
and the cuttings of various kinds of under- 
wood, cut so that they will go in but not fill 
up the bottom ; there may be as much of this 
put in all along the drains as will nearly half 
fill them; and if this material be trodden down 
hard, it will form a good flooring for the re- 
turned soil, and yet not fill the ground down 
to the sharp point. But it is possible that 
you may neither get stones nor wood, but be 
dependent on the very soil you take out. If 
so, put in the top clods that you took from 
the surface ; these from their size will not 
reach the bottom, but will prevent the rest of 
the soil from going below them, and thus 
leave an open space below for the run of 
water ; whatever may be put in, the rest of 
the soil must be returned to the trench you 
have formed. These drains will feed the 
ditch you have made at the lowest part ; and 
this ditch, or rather the ditches, will feed the 
principal pond, and not only relieve the 
ground, but supply you with what you really 
want in almost every situation — water for the 
cattle, if not for home or domestic use. 
Suppose the pond is too full to receive the 
contents of all these drains, and that for want 
of relief the drains cannot empty themselves 
in wdnter and wet seasons ; be not therefore 
deterred from draining, because if by reason 
of dry weather the pond is low enough to 
receive the run of water for only one week in 
the whole year, it is a relief, and does the 
ground an immense service. More than this ; 
if the water be in such plenty nine months or 
more in the year, the good very much over- 
balances the evil, and the end is attained ; 
the land is relieved under the worst circum- 
stances, and the supply of water is in most 
countries a blessing, besides which you may 
fairly conclude, that but for the drains the 
pond would not be so full. In short, draining 
the ground under any circumstances, even if 
apparently useless eleven months out of 
twelve, is of great service. These drains let 
air into the earth, and prevent stagnant water; 
for notwithstanding that the pond may be full, 
or at least the mouths of all the drains covered, 
the pond is constantly, however slowly, con- 
sumed by cattle, by evaporation, by being 
withdrawn for domestic use, or by all three ; 
and though the mouths of the drains are filled, 
they are continually giving out some water, 
while more may be accumulating, so that it is 
not the same water standing in the same 
place, as is the case when the land is not 
drained. Nor need it be feared that land 
is too dry for draining to be of use. It is 
