48 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
January  18,  1900. 
THE  VALUE  OF  DRAINAGE. 
There  are  some  matters  of  equal  importance  to  the  gardener  and 
the  farmer,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  Who  can  say  how  many  acres  of 
land  there  are  now  lying  waste  and  profitless  that  only  require  the 
work  of  the  drainer  to  carry  off  the  superfluous  water  in  order  to 
make  it  fertile  and  yielding  ?  It  is  unreasonable  to  expect  a  cold 
water-sodden  soil  to  be  prcfitable  to  either  gardener  or  farmer,  and  it 
is  surprising  how  many  presumably  practical  men  there  are  who 
continually  chafe  at  disappointing  results  without  ever  considering 
this  simple  but  important  reason  for  the  failure. 
During  the  past  few  dry  seasons  the  importance  of  thorough  land 
drainage  has  not  been  so  apparent,  but  it  makes  no  difference  to  the 
fact,  and  one  cold  wet  summer  would  bring  it  before  us  in  all  its 
significance.  Fortunately  for  the  appearance  and  fertility  of  the 
country  the  larger  proportion  of  land  drains  itself  naturally,  and  by 
the  suitable  formation  of  the  substrata  the  moisture,  after  performing 
its  functions,  is  carried  away.  I  say,  fortunately,  because  if  it  was 
not  so  we  should  have  many  more  of  those  dreary,  unfertile  areas  of 
land  that  grow  nothing  but  clcmps  of  rushes  and  wiry  grass,  which 
are  to  be  seen  in  all  districts,  and  are  as  unsightly  to  the  landscape  as 
they  are  useless  to  the  cultivator.  Illustrations  such  as  these,  and  the 
difference  to  be  seen  after  the  superfluous  water  has  been  carried  away, 
point  more  plainly  to  the  fact  that  good  drainage  is  one  of  the  first 
principles  of  laud  cultivation. 
And  yet  how  often  it  is  overlooked  !  More  than  once  I  have  seen 
instances  where  well-meaning  persons  have  spent  time  and  money  in 
planting  fruit  trees,  and  the  capital  has  had  to  bo  written  off  as  a 
dead  loss.  A  few  years  have  seen  healthy  vigorous  trees  transformed 
into  miserable  cankered  specimens  with  gaps  here  and  there  showing 
where  they  have  succumbed,  while  the  would-be  fruit  grower  in  time 
gets  tired  of  waiting  for  improvement  and  throws  the  whole  thing 
over  as  a  bad  job.  Due  regard  for  the  first  principles  of  cultivation 
might  have  saved  all  this,  and  a  few  pounds  spent  in  drainage  at 
the  outset  would  have  been  money  well  invested. 
Ihe  county  of  Kent  has  a  wide  reputation  for  the  production  of 
fruit,  and  its  climatic  advantages  and  fertile  soil  are  often  referred  to 
as  being  the  direct  causes  of  it.  Quite  so,  but  we  must  not  overlook 
the  fact  that  a  greater  part  of  the  county,  and  particularly  that 
where  the  most  fruit  is  grown,  has  a  perfectly  natural  drainage  in 
the  substrata  of  chalk  which  exist,  and  consequently  the  soil  has 
every  opportunity  of  being  warmed  and  rendered  free  and  friable. 
All  the  same,  there  are  many  instances  of  fruit  failures  in  this  favoured 
county  that  can  be  directly  attributed  to  superabundance  of  water  in 
the  ground,  and  to  the  wrong  impression  held  by  some  persons  that 
because  Kent  is  a  fine  fruit  producing  county  it  can  be  grown 
everywhere. 
One  might  readily  carry  the  argument  from  fruit  grown  outdoors 
to  that  under  glass,  where  good  drainage  is  all-important.  Shanking 
of  Grapes  and  other  Vine  failures  may  more  often  than  not  be  traced 
to  defective  drainage,  followed  by  the  consequent  sourness  of  soil,  and 
whole  or  partial  failure  of  root  action.  I  wonder  how  many  cases 
there  are  to-day  of  sickly  Vines  where  growers  are  doing  all  they 
can  to  improve  matters  by  feeding  and  treating  the  parts  that  are 
visible.  And  the  task  is  a  thankless  one,  for  the  evil  lies  deeper, 
underneath  the  border  in  fact,  where  clogged  or  defective  drainage 
no  longer  acts  as  a  water  conductor,  but  as  a  barrier,  whereby  the 
periodical  applications  made  to  the  roots  are  conserved  instead  of 
being  carried  away,  and  under  these  conditions  it  is  only  a  matter  of 
time  for  the  best  of  composed  borders  to  become  sour  and  sodden 
instead  of  a  healthy  feeding  ground  for  fibres.  We  often  hear  com¬ 
plaints  about  worn  out  Vines,  though  no  one  has  yet  been  able  to 
determine  how  long  a  Vine  is  capable  of  producing  high  quality 
Grapes  provided  all  conditions  are  satisfactory,  and  it  is  quite 
reasonable  to  conclude  that  many  so-called  worn  out  Vines  are  brought 
into  that  condition  through  defects  in  the  drainage  system  of  the 
borders. 
It  is  the  same  with  other  fruits  grown  under  glass.  Take 
Teaches  and  Nectarines  for  instance,  and  their  failure  to  ripen  the 
young  w'ood  and  produce  fruit  blossoms.  It  is  not  so  much  the  water 
they  receive  as  the  fact  that  the  moisture  cannot  get  away  but  remains 
to  sour  the  soil.  Nature  teaches  the  lesson,  because  with  fruit 
growing  out  of  doors  wood  rarely  fails  to  ripen  and  produce  fruit  buds, 
even  in  wet  seasons  if  the  drainage  is  good,  and  it  is  only  where  the 
latter  is  defective  that  the  evils  mentioned  above  become  apparent. 
As  a  final  illustration,  how  important  it  is  that  the  drainage  of  all 
plants  in  pots  should  be  good,  and  particularly  so  during  the  winter 
months.  Who  is  there  among  gardeners  who  has  not  seen  Heaths 
and  Azaleas  die  in  a  mysterious  manner,  and  pot  Camellias  turn 
sickly  and  drop  their  buds,  and  all  because  the  water  after  performing 
its  purpose  cannot  pass  freely  away  ?  Softwooded  plants  succumb 
from  the  same  cause,  and  defects  in  drainage  frequently  result  in 
wholesale  losses  of  Cinerarias  and  similar  plants  which  require  careful 
treatment  through  the  winter  months.  Crocking  a  pot  is  in  itself  a 
simple  operation.  It  is  the  first  lesson  a  garden  boy  learns,  and  one 
of  the  most  important,  and  often  the  man  who  plies  the  water  canU» 
blamed  for  the  shortcomings  of  the  one  who  crocked  the  pots. 
Thorough  drainage  then  is  indispensable  in  all  cultural  depart¬ 
ments,  and  no  substitute  can  be  put  in  its  place.  Where  Nature  does 
it  herself,  all  well  and  good,  but  where  it  becomes  part  of  the  work  ot 
the  cultivator  let  it  be  understood  that  there  are  two  ways — the  right 
and  the  wrong.  The  former  is  conducive  to  the  best  results,  the 
latter  courts  failure,  and  any  attempt  at  a  middle  course  is  risky,  if 
not  dangerous. — H.  H. 
EXPERIENCE  WITH  CLUBBING. 
An  Ancient  Remeot. 
On  points  of  the  nature  referred  to  on  page  36  last  week  on  the 
extraordinary  case  of  clubbing  on  Apple  roots,  there  is  no  guidance  so 
safe  as  that  of  experience.  Perhaps  I  may  usefully  refer  to  a  case  of 
clubbing  or  finger-and-toe  in  Turnips  that  occurred  long  before  the 
disease  was  proved  by  M.  Woronin,  a  Russian  botanist,  in  1876,  to  be 
due  to  a  slime  fungus,  Plasmodiophora  Brassiem,  and  even  before  the 
Rev.  M.  J.  Berkeley  expounded  the  nature  of  the  Potato  murrain  in 
1846.  It  was  in  1844  that,  as  in  previous  years,  Turnips  finger-and- 
toed  on  two  plots  of  land  of  a  light  sandy  nature,  every  year  cropped 
with  Ashtop  Potatoes,  a  second  crop  of  Potatoes  for  seed  being  taken, 
on  one  plot  and  Turnips  on  the  other  in  alternate  years. 
The  Potato  epidemic  ended  the  second  cropping  with  Potatoes  in 
1846,  and  in  that  winter  (1846  and  1847)  one  of  the  plots  was  marled 
at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  cartloads  to  the  acre.  I  remember  it  well,  for 
to  a  lad  of  nine  years  throwing  lumps  of  clay  marl  about  was  no  joke. 
The  weather  broke  the  lumps  up  beautifully,  and  a  dry  time  being 
chosen  for  ploughing  in,  the  leader  of  the  horse  was  not  hampered  by 
pounds  of  clay  adhering  to  each  foot.  The  plot  was  planted  with  early 
Potatoes,  and  given  a  dressing  of  half  a  ton  of  salt  to  the  acre.  This 
perhaps  did  more  harm  than  good,  as  the  disease  was  rampant  among 
them. 
Turnips  followed  the  Ashtop  Potatoes,  and  they  did  not  finger-and- 
toe  as  before  ;  then,  cleared  of  the  Turnips  in  October,  the  land  was 
ploughed  and  sown  with  Wheat  on  November  5th,  1847,  and  in  1848  there 
was  a  heavy  crop,  as  I  had  reason  to  remember,  as  I  cut  my  hand  to  the 
bone  in  letting  the  sickle  run  up  the  straw  instead  of  bending  the 
latter  over  in  shearing.  Output  60  bushels  of  Wheat  per  acre,  and 
tailing  for  grinding  to  mix  with  “  demicked  ”  Potatoes  after  boiling,  to 
fatten  pigs  ;  there  was  no  more  finger-and-toe  amongst  Turnips  on  that 
plot  of  ground. 
The  other  plot  was  dressed  with  salt,  half  a  ton  to  the  acre,  after 
the  Ashtop  Potatoes,  then  sown  with  Turnips,  and  two-thirds  of  the 
crop  decayed  on  the  land.  A  breadth  of  Cabbage,  however,  did  not  club, 
for  the  land  where  they  were  grown  was  dressed  with  a  mixture  of  soot 
and  lime  mixed  with  salt  from  cured  bacon.  At  that  time  I  knew  as 
much  about  club  fungus  as  about  growing  Cabbages  and  Turnips ;  but  I 
had  a  microscope,  even  in  those  days,  but  of  low  power,  and  it  failed  to 
bring  into  view  anything  but  what  I  afterwards  learned  was  a  naked 
mass  of  protoplasm.  A  dressing  of  gas  lime — a  cartload  to  the  rood, 
for  that  was  the  extent  of  this  plot — enabled  us  to  grow  Turnips  after 
the  Ashtop  Potatoes. 
I  have  often  pondered  over  these  experiences  of  early  days,  and 
wondered  why  so  very  few  persons  now-a-days  dig  marl  pits  and  chalk 
pits.  In  olden  time  they  were  common  ;  light  land  was  clay  marled 
and  hot  land  chalked.  The  finger-and  toe  came  in  with  the  field  culture 
of  Turnips  about  1645,  but  appears  to  have  made  very  little  advance 
until  marling  and  liming  passed  into  oblivion.  Now  we  discover  that 
land  wants  lime  to  provide  wholesome  nutrition  for  useful  crops,  and  our 
discoveries  simply  enforce  the  wisdom  of  ancient  practices,  and 
experience  proves  that  they  cannot  be  disregarded  without  prejudice. 
With  all  our  boasted  advancement  we  still  have  to  dig  the  soil  “  deeper 
to  find  the  gold  ’’—the  inorganic  elements  for  blending  with  the  organic 
accumulations  of  ages. 
Of  all  correcting  substances  lime  appears  the  chief.  It  was  the 
lime  of  the  marl  that  enabled  the  Turnips  to  resist  the  slime  fungus, 
just  as  the  cyanogen  of  the  gas  lime  killed  the  parasite  on  the  other 
plot  and  improved  the  land  for  producing  Brassicas. — G.  Abbey. 
Water  Expansion. — It  was  an  odd  coincidence  that  on  the  day 
the  last  issue  of  the  Journal  came  to  me  that  I  shculd  have  also 
seen  in  the  month’s  issue  of  the  “Strand”  an  illustration  of  a  jog 
which,  left  exposed  to  severe  frost  for  one  night  only,  and  full  of 
water,  was  shown  with  the  water  a  solid  block  of  ice,  and  the  jug 
split  in  halves.  That  was  singularly  conclusive  as  to  the  distension 
of  water  which  takes  place  when  it  is  solidified  by  frost.  There  were 
also,  oddly  enough,  in  the  number  illustrations  of  a  ship  in  different 
stages  of  sinking  because  the  ice  in  the  northern  regions  had  crushedi 
in  the  side  of  the  boat,  and  thus  admitted  water.  Of  course,  object 
lessons  of  this  kind  are  not  required  by  thqse  who  do  know,  but 
there  still  seem  to  be  some  people  in  the  world  who  need  such  proofs 
to  convince  them. — A.  D. 
