THOROUGH DRAINAGE. 
211 
dation of good farming; and they only have 
acted wisely who have obeyed its requirements. 
But, on the other hand, it may be stated, for the 
comfort of the farmer in these disastrous times, 
that this very stiff land, after drainage, with 
proper cultivation and manuring, is capable of 
procuring enormous crops, both of grain and 
roots; this lean testify to from experience. 
I will give another instance or two, from farms 
not in my occupation. The first is a small farm, 
of about 40 acres, which I drained last year. 
This land was unusually wet and" although it was 
thrown up in high narrow furrows of about 
eight feet wide, it was impassable for horses, 
excepting in the driest weather, when the ground 
baked up as hard as a brick. The seasons for 
sowing were frequently lost, as the land could 
not be got ready in time. Now the drains in 
this farm were put in at four and four and a 
half feet in depth, and at distances varying 
from 15 to 30 feet, such as from the charac¬ 
ter of the soil I deemed sufficient, the surface 
soil not being of one uniform texture. After the 
draining was completed, I recommended the 
tenant to throw down all the high ridges, and 
lay the ground perfectly flat. He followed my 
advice, and the land has ever since been thor¬ 
oughly dry, without indicating the necessity of 
retaining any furrows. I walked over this farm 
during the wettest part of January; there was 
no water at all to be seen on the surface, and 
the ground under foot had become perfectly 
sound; though previous to the draining, after 
similar heavy rains, I have often seen, on the 
inclined surfaces of the fields, gullies washed 
out two and three feet deep, and the flats of the 
fields were so rotten that a person could not 
walk on them without sinking over his shoes at 
every step. The subsoil of this farm is also 
the gault clay. 
I will only mention one more instance, taken 
from the land of a friend and neighbor of mine. 
The land he has drained rests upon the London 
clay. Previously it was a very poor wet pas¬ 
ture ground, producing little besides rushes and 
moss. He could not obtain a tenant for it at 2s. 
6d. an acre. He therefore determined to drain 
it, and occupy it himself. His drains are 
placed four feet deep, and thirty feet apart. 
The remedy has proved effectual, the land be¬ 
ing as good now as the rest of his farm, and he 
could readily let it for 30s. per acre. 
Here, again, we have an illustration of the 
non-necessity of open furrows derived from an 
experiment over some 50 or 60 acres, the whole 
of which now lies perfectly flat. . L 
It is obviously impossible to lay down any 
uniform set of rules as to the proper distances 
at which drains should be placed so as to make 
them thoroughly efficient; these must be regu¬ 
lated in each case, by the texture and consis¬ 
tency of the soil; but I do most unhesitatimgly 
maintain, if the land be truly underdrained, 
that is, deeply enough and thickly enough, that 
open furrows to carry'off surface water are 
more than useless. To the scientific farmer, it 
would be mere waste time to descant upon the 
advantages accruing from water percolating 
through the soil instead of running over it; and 
more particularly since so much light has been 
thrown upon the rationale of the benefits arising 
from the percolation of water, by the individual 
discoveries resulting from the investigations of 
Professor Way and Mr. Thompson on the ma¬ 
nuring absorptive power of clay in our agricul¬ 
tural soils. I ought, perhaps, to add that I inva¬ 
riably trench or subsoil immediately after drain¬ 
ing. 
This afternoon, I walked to my farm to see 
the effects of a continuous, heavy 12 hours’ rain 
upon the land. I consider this a capital oppor¬ 
tunity for testing the accuracy of my statement 
relative to the absence of all surface water, upon 
my thickly and deeply-drained land; for before 
the storm of to-day during the past week, the 
rains have been so heavy as to saturate the soil 
with water, and our low grounds have been con¬ 
stantly flooded; so I thought if ever water was 
to be seen on the surface, I should find it there to 
day. It was pouring with rain when I smarted 
from home, but there was a temporary clearing 
up of the weather about five minutes before I 
reached this part of my farm, in company with 
my bailiff. We walked over every part of the 
stiff'est gault-clay field that I possess, containing 
about 12 acres; and I can most confidently as¬ 
sert that there was no water whatever on the 
surface, and there was no symptom of the 
slightest rill having run upon the surface, dur¬ 
ing the heaviest period of the rain. In fact, ev¬ 
ery drop of water percolated through the soil 
into the deep drains below, from whence copi¬ 
ous streams were issuing like little rivers. 
Moreover, it so happened that in this field there 
were 20 or 30 holes dug about it in different 
parts, each two feet deep, and they were all free 
from water, with the exception of two or three 
on a quarter of an acre, in one corner of the 
field, where the drains were placed 18 feet 
apart, instead of 12 feet, as in all other parts of 
the field—here there was about two inches of 
water at the bottom of the holes. This field is 
