The Agriculture of America has seemed to me to demand some light upon the subject of Drainage; some work, which, with an exposition of the various theories, should give the simplest details of the practice, of draining land. This treatise is an attempt to answer that demand, and to give to the farmers of our country, at the same time, enough of scientific principles to satisfy intelligent inquiry, and plain and full directions for executing work in the field, according to the best known rules. It has been my endeavor to show what lands in America require drainage, and how to drain them best, at least expense; to explain how the theories and the practice of the Old World require modification for the cheaper lands, the dearer labor, and the various climate of the New; and, finally, to suggest how, through improved implements and processes, the inventive genius of our country may make the brain assist and relieve the labor of the hand.
With some hope that my humble labors, in a field so broad, may not have entirely failed of their object, this work is offered to the attention of American farmers.
H. F. F.
The Pines, Exeter, N. H., March, 1859.
Why this Treatise does not contain all Knowledge.—Attention of Scientific Men attracted to Drainage.—Lieutenant Maury's Suggestions.—Ralph Waldo Emerson's Views.—Opinions of J. H. Klippart, Esq.; of Professor Mapes; B. P. Johnston, Esq.; Governor Wright, Mr. Custis, &c.—Prejudice against what is English.—Acknowledgements to our Friends at Home and Abroad.—The Wants of our Farmers.
A Book upon Farm Drainage! What can a person find on such a subject to write a book about? A friend suggests, that in order to treat any one subject fully, it is necessary to know everything and speak of everything, because all knowledge is in some measure connected.
With an earnest endeavor to clip the wings of imagination, and to keep not only on the earth, but to burrow, like a mole or a sub-soiler, in it, with a painful apprehension lest some technical term in Chemistry or Philosophy should falsely indicate that we make pretensions to the character of a scientific farmer, or some old phrase of law-Latin should betray that we know something besides agriculture, and so, are not worthy of the confidence of practical men, we have, nevertheless, by some means, got together more than a bookfull of matter upon our subject.
Our publisher says our book must be so large, and no larger—and we all know that an author is but as a grasshopper in the hands of his publisher, and ought to be very thankful to be allowed to publish his book at all. So we have only to say, that if there is any chapter in this book not sufficiently elaborate, or any subject akin to that of drainage, that ought to have been embraced in our plan and is not, it is because we have not space for further expansion. The reader has our heartfelt sympathy, if it should happen that the very topic which most interests him, is entirely omitted, or imperfectly treated; and we can only advise him to write a book himself, by way of showing proper resentment, and put into it everything that everybody desires most to know.
A book that shall contain all that we do not know on the subject of drainage, would be a valuable acquisition to agricultural literature, and we bespeak an early copy of it when published.
Irrigation is a subject closely connected with drainage, and, although it would require a volume of equal size with this to lay it properly before the American public, who know so little of water-meadows and liquid-manuring, and even of the artificial application of water to land in any way, we feel called upon for an apology for its omission.
Lieutenant Maury, whose name does honor to his nation over all the civilized world, and on whom the blessings of every navigator upon the great waters, are constantly showered, in a letter which we had the honor recently to receive from him, thus speaks of this subject:
"I was writing to a friend some months ago upon the subject of drainage in this country, and I am pleased to infer from your letter, that our opinions are somewhat similar. The climate of England is much more moist than this, though the amount of rain in many parts of this country, is much greater than the amount of rain there. It drizzles there more than it does here. Owing to the high dew point in England, but a small portion only—that is, comparatively small—of the rain that falls can be evaporated again; consequently, it remains in the soil until it is drained off. Here, on the other hand, the clouds pour it down, and the sun sucks it up right away, so that the perfection of drainage for this country would be the very reverse, almost, of the drainage in England. If, instead of leading the water off into the water-veins and streams of the country, as is there done, we could collect it in pools on the farm, so as to be used in time of drought for irrigation, then your system of drainage would be worth untold wealth. Of course, in low grounds, and all places where the atmosphere does not afford sufficient drainage by evaporation, the English plan will do very well, and much good may be done by a treatise which shall enable owners to reclaim or improve such places."
Indeed, the importance of this subject of drainage, seems all at once to have found universal acknowledgement throughout our country, not only from agriculturists, but from philosophers and men of general science.
Emerson, whose eagle glance, piercing beyond the sight of other men, recognizes in so-called accidental heroes the "Representative men" of the ages, and in what to others seem but caprices and conventionalisms, the "Traits" of a nation, yet never overlooks the practical and every-day wants of man, in a recent address at Concord, Mass., the place of his residence, thus characteristically alludes to our subject:
"Concord is one of the oldest towns in the country—far on now in its third century. The Select-men have once in five years perambulated its bounds, and yet, in this year, a very large quantity of land has been discovered and added to the agricultural land, and without a murmur of complaint from any neighbor. By drainage, we have gone to the subsoil, and we have a Concord under Concord, a Middlesex under Middlesex, and a basement-story of Massachusetts more valuable than all the superstructure. Tiles are political economists. They are so many Young-Americans announcing a better era, and a day of fat things."
John H. Klippart, Esq., the learned Secretary of the Ohio Board of Agriculture, expresses his opinion upon the importance of our subject in his own State, in this emphatic language:
"The agriculture of Ohio can make no farther marked progress until a good system of under-drainage has been adopted."
A writer in the Country Gentleman, from Ashtabula County, Ohio, says:—"One of two things must be done by us here. Clay predominates in our soil, and we must under-drain our land, or sell and move west."
Professor Mapes, of New York, under date of January 17, 1859, says of under-draining:
"I do not believe that farming can be pursued with full profit without it. It would seem to be no longer a question. The experience of England, in the absence of all other proof, would be sufficient to show that capital may be invested more safely in under-draining, than in any other way; for, after the expenditure of many millions by English farmers in this way, it has been clearly proved that their increased profit, arising from this cause alone, is sufficient to pay the total expense in full, with interest, within twenty years, thus leaving their farms increased permanently to the amount of the total cost, while the income is augmented in a still greater ratio. It is quite doubtful whether England could at this time sustain her increased population, if it were not for her system of thorough-drainage. In my own practice, the result has been such as to convince me of its advantages, and I should be unwilling to enter into any new cultivation without thorough drainage."
B. P. Johnson, Secretary of the New York Board of Agriculture, in answer to some inquiries upon the subject of drainage with tiles, writes us, under date of December, 1858, as follows:
"I have given much time and attention to the subject of drainage, having deemed it all-important to the improvement of the farms of our State. I am well satisfied, from a careful examination in England, as well as from my observation in this country, that tiles are far preferable to any other material that I know of for drains, and this is the opinion of all those who have engaged extensively in the work in this State, so far as I have information. It is gratifying to be assured, that during the year past, there has been probably more land-draining than during any previous year, showing the deep interest which is taken in this all-important work, so indispensable to the success of the farmer."
It is ascertained, by inquiry at the Land Office, that more than 52,000,000 acres of swamp and overflowed lands have been selected under the Acts of March 2d, 1849, and September 28th, 1850, from the dates of those grants to September, 1856; and it is estimated that, when the grants shall have been entirely adjusted, they will amount to 60,000,000 acres.
Grants of these lands have been made by Congress, from the public domain, gratuitously, to the States in which they lie, upon the idea that they were not only worthless to the Government, but dangerous to the health of the neighboring inhabitants, with the hope that the State governments might take measures to reclaim them for cultivation, or, at least, render them harmless, by the removal of their surplus water.
Governor Wright, of Indiana, in a public address, estimated the marshy lands of that State at 3,000,000 acres. "These lands," he says, "were generally avoided by early settlers, as being comparatively worthless; but, when drained, they become eminently fertile." He further says: "I know a farm of 160 acres, which was sold five years ago for $500, that by an expenditure of less than $200, in draining and ditching, has been so improved, that the owner has refused for it an offer of $3,000."
At the meeting of the United States Agricultural Society, at Washington, in January, 1857, Mr. G. W. P. Custis spoke in connection with the great importance of this subject, of the vast quantity of soil—the richest conceivable—now lying waste, to the extent of 100,000 acres, along the banks of the Lower Potomac, and which he denominates by the old Virginia title of pocoson. The fertility of this reclaimable swamp he reports to be astonishing; and he has corroborated the opinion by experiments which confounded every beholder. "These lands on our time-honored river," he says, "if brought into use, would supply provisions at half the present cost, and would in other respects prove of the greatest advantage."
The drainage of highways and walks, was noted as a topic kindred to our subject, although belonging more properly perhaps, to the drainage of towns and to landscape-gardening, than to farm drainage. This, too, was found to be beyond the scope of our proposed treatise, and has been left to some abler hand.
So, too, the whole subject of reclaiming lands from the sea, and from rivers, by embankment, and the drainage of lakes and ponds, which at a future day must attract great attention in this country, has proved quite too extensive to be treated here. The day will soon come, when on our Atlantic coast, the ocean waves will be stayed, and all along our great rivers, the Spring floods, and the Summer freshets, will be held within artificial barriers, and the enclosed lands be kept dry by engines propelled by steam, or some more efficient or economical agent.
The half million acres of fen-land in Lincolnshire, producing the heaviest wheat crops in England; and Harlaem Lake, in Holland, with its 40,000 acres of fertile land, far below the tides, and once covered with many feet of water, are examples of what science and well-directed labor may accomplish. But this department of drainage demands the skill of scientific engineers, and the employment of combined capital and effort, beyond the means of American farmers; and had we ability to treat it properly, would afford matter rather of pleasing speculation, than of practical utility to agricultural readers.
With a reckless expenditure of paper and ink, we had already prepared chapters upon several topics, which, though not essential to farm-drainage, were as near to our subject as the minister usually is limited in preaching, or the lawyer in argument; but conformity to the Procrustean bed, in whose sheets we had in advance stipulated to sleep, cost us the amputation of a few of our least important heads.
"Don't be too English," suggests a very wise and politic friend. We are fully aware of the prejudice which still exists in many minds in our country, against what is peculiarly English. Because, forsooth, our good Mother England, towards a century ago, like most fond mothers, thought her transatlantic daughter quite too young and inexperienced to set up an establishment and manage it for herself, and drove her into wasteful experiments of wholesale tea-making in Boston harbor, by way of illustrating her capacity of entertaining company from beyond seas; and because, near half a century ago, we had some sharp words, spoken not through the mouths of prophets and sages, but through the mouths of great guns, touching the right of our venerated parent to examine the internal economy of our merchant-ships on the sea—because of reminiscences like these, we are to forswear all that is English! And so we may claim no kindred in literature with Shakspeare and Milton, in jurisprudence, with Bacon and Mansfield, in statesmanship, with Pitt and Fox!
Whence came the spirit of independence, the fearless love of liberty of which we boast, but from our English blood? Whence came our love of territorial extension, our national ambition, exhibited under the affectionate name of annexation? Does not this velvet paw with which we softly play with our neighbors' heads, conceal some long, crooked talons, which tell of the ancestral blood of the British Lion?
The legislature of a New England State, not many years ago, appointed a committee to revise its statutes. This committee had a pious horror of all dead languages, and a patriotic fear of paying too high a compliment to England, and so reported that all proceedings in courts of law should be in the American language! An inquiry by a waggish member, whether the committee intended to allow proceedings to be in any one of the three hundred Indian dialects, restored to the English language its appropriate name.
Though from some of our national traits, we might possibly be supposed to have sprung from the sowing of the dragon's teeth by Cadmus, yet the uniform record of all American families which goes back to the "three brothers who came over from England," contradicts this theory, and connects us by blood and lineage with that country.
Indeed, we can hardly consent to sell our birthright for so poor a mess of pottage as this petty jealousy offers. A teachable spirit in matters of which we are ignorant, is usually as profitable and respectable as abundant self-conceit, and rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, quite as honest as to pocket the coin as our own, notwithstanding the "image and superscription."
We make frequent reference to English writers and to English opinions upon our subject, because drainage is understood and practiced better in England than anywhere else in the world, and because by personal inspection of drainage-works there, and personal acquaintance and correspondence with some of the most successful drainers in that country, we feel some confidence of ability to apply English principles to American soil and climate.
To J. Bailey Denton, Engineer of the General Land Drainage Company, and one of the most distinguished practical and scientific drainers in England, we wish publicly to acknowledge our obligations for personal favors shown us in the preparation of our work.
We claim no great praise of originality in what is here offered to the public. Wherever we have found a person of whom we could learn anything, in this or other countries, we have endeavored to profit by his teachings, and whenever the language of another, in book or journal, has been found to express forcibly an idea which we deemed worthy of adoption, we have given full credit for both thought and words.
Our friends, Messrs. Shedd and Edson, of Boston, whose experience as draining engineers entitles them to a high rank among American authorities, have been in constant communication with us, throughout our labors. The chapter upon Evaporation, Rain fall, &c., which we deem of great value as a contribution to science in general, will be seen to be in part credited to them, as are also the tables showing the discharge of water through pipes of various capacity.
Drainage is a new subject in America, not well understood, and we have no man, it is believed, peculiarly fitted to teach its theory and practice; yet the farmers everywhere are awake to its importance, and are eagerly seeking for information on the subject. Many are already engaged in the endeavor to drain their lands, conscious of their want of the requisite knowledge to effect their object in a profitable manner, while others are going resolutely forward, in violation of all correct principles, wasting their labor, unconscious even of their ignorance.
In New England, we have determined to dry the springy hill sides, and so lengthen our seasons for labor; we have found, too, in the valleys and swamps, the soil which has been washed from our mountains, and intend to avail ourselves of its fertility in the best manner practicable. On the prairies of the great West, large tracts are found just a little too wet for the best crops of corn and wheat, and the inquiry is anxiously made, how can we be rid of this surplus water.
There is no treatise, English or American, which meets the wants of our people. In England, it is true, land drainage is already reduced to a science; but their system has grown up by degrees, the first principles being now too familiar to be at all discussed, and the points now in controversy there, quite beyond the comprehension of beginners. America wants a treatise which shall be elementary, as well as thorough—that shall teach the alphabet, as well as the transcendentalism, of draining land—that shall tell the man who never saw a drain-tile what thorough drainage is, and shall also suggest to those who have studied the subject in English books only, the differences in climate and soil, in the prices of labor and of products, which must modify our operations.
With some practical experience on his own land, with careful observation in Europe and in America of the details of drainage operations, with a somewhat critical examination of published books and papers on all topics connected with the general subject, the author has endeavored to turn the leisure hours of a laborious professional life to some account for the farmer. Although, as the lawyers say, the "presumptions" are, perhaps, strongly against the idea, yet a professional man may understand practical farming. The profession of the law has made some valuable contributions to agricultural literature. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, author of the "Boke of Husbandrie," published in 1523, was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and, as he says, an "experyenced farmer of more than 40 years." The author of that charming little book, "Talpa," it is said, is also a lawyer, and there is such wisdom in the idea, so well expressed by Emerson as a fact, that we commend it by way of consolation to men of all the learned professions: "All of us keep the farm in reserve, as an asylum where to hide our poverty and our solitude, if we do not succeed in society."
Besides the prejudice against what is foreign, we meet everywhere the prejudice against what is new, though far less in this country than in England. "No longer ago than 1835," says the Quarterly Review, "Sir Robert Peel presented a Farmers' Club, at Tamworth, with two iron plows of the best construction. On his next visit, the old plows, with the wooden mould-boards, were again at work. 'Sir,' said a member of the club, 'we tried the iron, and we be all of one mind, that they make the weeds grow!'"
American farmers have no such ignorant prejudice as this. They err rather by having too much faith in themselves, than by having too little in the idea of progress, and will be more likely to "go ahead" in the wrong direction, than to remain quiet in their old position.
Draining as Old as the Deluge.—Roman Authors.—Walter Bligh in 1650.—No thorough drainage till Smith of Deanston.—No mention of tiles in the "Compleat Body of Husbandry," 1758.—Tiles found 100 years old.—Elkington's System.—Johnstone's Puns and Peripatetics.—Draining Springs.—Bletonism, or the Faculty of Perceiving Subterranean Water.—Deanston System.—Views of Mr. Parkes.—Keythorpe System.—Wharncliffe System.—Introduction of tiles into America.—John Johnston, and Mr. Delafield, of New York.
The art of removing superfluous water from land, must be as ancient as the art of cultivation; and from the time when Noah and his family anxiously watched the subsiding of the waters into their appropriate channels, to the present, men must have felt the ill effects of too much water, and adopted means more or less effective, to remove it.
The Roman writers upon agriculture, Cato, Columella, and Pliny, all mention draining, and some of them give minute directions for forming drains with stones, branches of trees, and straw. Palladius, in his De Aquæ Ductibus, mentions earthen-ware tubes, used however for aqueducts, rather for conveying water from place to place, than for draining lands for agriculture.
Nothing, however, like the systematic drainage of the present day, seems to have been conceived of in England, until about 1650, when Captain Walter Bligh published a work, which is interesting, as embodying and boldly advocating the theory of deep-drainage as applied by him to water-meadows and swamps, and as applicable to the drainage of all other moist lands.
We give from the 7th volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, in the language of that eminent advocate of deep-drainage, Josiah Parkes, an account of this rare book, and of the principles which it advocates, as a fitting introduction to the more modern and more perfect system of thorough drainage:
"The author of this work was a Captain Walter Bligh, signing himself, 'A Lover of Ingenuity.' It is quaintly entitled, 'The English Improver Improved; or, the Survey of Husbandry Surveyed;' with several prefaces, but specially addressed to 'The Right Honorable the Lord General Cromwell, and the Right Honorable the Lord President, and the rest of the Honorable Society of the Council of State.' In his instructions for forming the flooding and draining trenches of water-meadows, the author says of the latter:—'And for thy drayning-trench, it must be made so deep, that it goe to the bottom of the cold spewing moyst water, that feeds the flagg and the rush; for the widenesse of it, use thine own liberty, but be sure to make it so wide as thou mayest goe to the bottom of it, which must be so low as any moysture lyeth, which moysture usually lyeth under the over and second swarth of the earth, in some gravel or sand, or else, where some greater stones are mixt with clay, under which thou must goe half one spade's graft deep at least. Yea, suppose this corruption that feeds and nourisheth the rush or flagg, should lie a yard or four-foot deepe; to the bottom of it thou must goe, if ever thou wilt drayn it to purpose, or make the utmost advantage of either floating or drayning, without which the water cannot have its kindly operation; for though the water fatten naturally, yet still this coldnesse and moysture lies gnawing within, and not being taken clean away, it eates out what the water fattens; and so the goodnesse of the water is, as it were, riddled, screened, and strained out into the land, leaving the richnesse and the leanesse sliding away from it.' In another place, he replies to the objectors of floating, that it will breed the rush, the flagg, and mare-blab; 'only make thy drayning-trenches deep enough, and not too far off thy floating course, and I'le warrant it they drayn away that under-moysture, fylth, and venom as aforesaid, that maintains them; and then believe me, or deny Scripture, which I hope thou doust not, as Bildad said unto Job, "Can the rush grow without mire, or the flagg without water?" Job viii. 12. That interrogation plainly showes that the rush cannot grow, 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 away 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 'filth and venom.'
"In the course of my operations as a drainer, I have met with, or heard of, so many instances of swamp-drainage, executed precisely according to the plans of this author, and sometimes in a superior manner—the conduits being formed of walling stone, at a period long antecedent to the memory of the living—that I am disposed to consider the practice of deep drainage to have originated with Captain Bligh, and to have been preserved by imitators in various parts of the country; since a book, which passed through three editions in the time of the Commonwealth, must necessarily have had an extensive circulation, and enjoyed a high renown. Several complimentary autograph verses, written by some imitators and admirers of the ingenious Bligh, are bound up with the volume. I find also, not unfrequently, very ancient deep drains in arable fields, and some of them still in good condition; and in a case or two, I have met with several ancient drains six feet deep, placed parallel with each other, but at so great a distance asunder, as not to have commanded a perfect drainage of the intermediate space. The author from whom I have so largely quoted, is the earliest known to me, who has had the sagacity to distinguish between the transient effect of rain, and the constant action of stagnant bottom-water in maintaining land in a wet condition."
Dr. Shier, editor of "Davy's Agricultural Chemistry," says, "The history of drainage in Britain may be briefly told. Till the time of Smith, of Deanston, draining was generally regarded as the means of freeing the land from springs, oozes, and under-water, and it was applied only to lands palpably wet, and producing rushes and other aquatic plants."
He then proceeds to give the principles of Elkington, Smith, Parkes, and other modern writers, of which we shall speak more at large.
The work published in England, not far from Captain Bligh's time, under the title "A Complete Body of Husbandry," undertakes to give directions for all sorts of farming processes. A Second Edition, in four octavo volumes, of which we have a copy, was published in 1758. It professes to treat of "Draining in General," and then of the draining of boggy land and of fens, but gives no intimation that any other lands require drainage.
Directions are given for filling drains with "rough stones," to be covered with refuse wood, and over that, some of the earth that was thrown out in digging. "By this means," says the writer, "a passage will be left free for all the water the springs yield, and there will be none of these great openings upon the surface."
He thus describes a method practiced in Oxfordshire of draining with bushes:
"Let the trenches be cut deeper than otherwise, suppose three foot deep, and two foot over. As soon as they are made, let the bottoms of them be covered with fresh-cut blackthorn bushes. Upon these, throw in a quantity of large refuse stones; over these let there be another covering of straw, and upon this, some of the earth, so as to make the surface level with the rest. These trenches will always keep open."
No mention whatever is made in this elaborate treatise of tiles of any kind, which affords very strong evidence that they were not in use for drainage at that time. In a note, however, to Stephen's "Draining and Irrigation," we find the following statement and opinion:
"In draining the park at Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire, about three years ago, some drains, made with tiles, were found eight feet below the surface of the ground. The tiles were similar to what are now used, and in as good a state of preservation as when first laid, although they must have remained there above one hundred years."
It appears, that, in 1795, the British Parliament, at the request of the Board of Agriculture, voted to Joseph Elkington a reward of £1000, for his valuable discoveries in the drainage of land. Joseph Elkington was a Warwickshire farmer, and Mr. Gisborne says he was a man of considerable genius, but he had the misfortune to be illiterate. His discovery had created such a sensation in the agricultural world, that it was thought important to record its details; and, as Elkington's health was extremely precarious, the Board resolved to send Mr. John Johnstone to visit, in company with him, his principal works of drainage, and to transmit to posterity the benefits of his knowledge.
Accordingly, Mr. John Johnstone, having carefully studied Elkington's system, under its author, in the peripatetic method, undertook, like Plato, to record the sayings of his master in science, and produced a work, entitled, "An Account of the Most Approved Mode of Draining Land, According to the System Practised by Mr. Joseph Elkington." It was published at Edinburgh, in 1797. Mr. Gisborne says, that Elkington found in Johnstone "a very inefficient exponent of his opinions, and of the principles on which he conducted his works."
"Every one," says he, "who reads the work, which is popularly called 'Elkington on Draining,' should be aware, that it is not Joseph who thinks and speaks therein, but John, who tells his readers what, according to his ideas, Joseph would have thought and spoken."
Again—
"Johnstone, measured by general capacity, is a very shallow drainer! He delights in exceptional cases, of which he may have met with some, but of which, we suspect the great majority to be products of his own ingenuity, and to be put forward, with a view to display the ability with which he could encounter them."
Johnstone's report seems to have undergone several revisions, and to have been enlarged and reproduced in other forms than the original, for we find, that, in 1838, it was published in the United States, at Petersburg, Virginia, as a supplement to the Farmer's Register, by Edmund Ruffin, Esq., editor, a reprint "from the third British Edition, revised and enlarged," under the following title:
"A Systematic Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Draining Land, &c., according to the most approved methods, and adapted to the various situations and soils of England and Scotland; also on sea, river, and lake embankments, formation of ponds and artificial pieces of water, with an appendix, containing hints and directions for the culture and improvement of bog, morass, moor, and other unproductive ground, after being drained; the whole illustrated by plans and sections applicable to the various situations and forms of construction. Inscribed to the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, by John Johnstone, Land Surveyor."
Mr. Ruffin certainly deserves great credit for his enterprise in republishing in America, at so early a day, a work of which an English copy could not be purchased for less than six dollars, as well as for his zealous labors ever since in the cause of agriculture.
There is, in this work of Johnstone, a quaintness which he, probably, did not learn from Elkington, and which illustrates the character of his mind as one not peculiarly adapted to a plain and practical history of another man's system and labors. For instance, in speaking of the arrangement of his subject into parts, he says, in a note, "The subject being closely connected with cutting, section is held as a better division than chapter!"
Again, he speaks of embanking, and says he has some experience on that head. Then he adds the following note, lest a possible pun should be lost: "An embankment is often termed a 'head,' as it makes head, or resistance, against the encroachment of high tide or river floods."
There is some danger that a mind which scents a whimsical analogy of meaning like this, may entirely lose the main track of pursuit; but Johnstone's special mission was to ascertain Elkington's method, and his account of it is, therefore, the best authority we have on the subject.
He gives the following statement of Elkington's discovery:
"In the year 1763, Elkington was left by his father in the possession of a farm called Prince-Thorp, in the parish of Stretton-upon-Dunsmore, and county of Warwick. The soil of this farm was so poor, and, in many places, so extremely wet, that it was the cause of rotting several hundreds of his sheep, which first induced him, if possible, to drain it. This he begun to do, in 1764, in a field of wet clay soil, rendered almost a swamp, or shaking bog, by the springs which issued from an adjoining bank of gravel and sand, and overflowed the surface of the ground below. To drain this field, which was of considerable extent, he cut a trench about four or five feet deep, a little below the upper side of the bog, where the wetness began to make its appearance; and, after proceeding with it in this direction and at this depth, he found it did not reach the principal body of subjacent water from which the evil arose. On perceiving this, he was at a loss how to proceed, when one of his servants came to the field with an iron crow, or bar, for the purpose of making holes for fixing sheep hurdles in an adjoining part of the farm, as represented on the plan. Having a suspicion that his drain was not deep enough, and desirous to know what strata lay under it, he took the iron bar, and having forced it down about four feet below the bottom of the trench, on pulling it out, to his astonishment, a great quantity of water burst up through the hole he had thus made, and ran along the drain. This led him to the knowledge, that wetness may be often produced by water confined farther below the surface of the ground than it was possible for the usual depth of drains to reach, and that an auger would be a useful instrument to apply in such cases. Thus, chance was the parent of this discovery, as she often is of other useful arts; and fortunate it is for society, when such accidents happen to those who have sense and judgment to avail themselves of hints thus fortuitously given. In this manner he soon accomplished the drainage of his whole farm, and rendered it so perfectly dry and sound, that none of his flock was ever after affected with disease.
"By the success of this experiment, Mr. Elkington's fame, as a drainer, was quickly and widely extended; and, after having successfully drained several farms in his neighborhood, he was, at last, very generally employed for that purpose in various parts of the kingdom, till about thirty years ago, when the country had the melancholy cause to regret his loss. From his long practice and experience, he became so successful in the works he undertook, and so skillful in judging of the internal strata of the earth and the nature of springs, that, with remarkable precision, he could ascertain where to find water, and trace the course of springs that made no appearance on the surface of the ground. During his practice of more than thirty years, he drained in various parts of England, particularly in the midland counties, many thousand acres of land, which, from being originally of little or no value, soon became as useful as any in the kingdom, by producing the most valuable kinds of grain and feeding the best and healthiest species of stock.
"Many have erroneously entertained an idea that Elkington's skill lay solely in applying the auger for the tapping of springs, without attaching any merit to his method of conducting the drains. The accidental circumstance above stated gave him the first notion of using an auger, and directed his attention to the profession and practice of draining, in the course of which he made various useful discoveries, as will be afterwards explained. With regard to the use of the auger, though there is every reason to believe that he was led to employ that instrument from the circumstance already stated, and did not derive it from any other source of intelligence, yet there is no doubt that others might have hit upon the same idea without being indebted for it to him. It has happened, that, in attempts to discover mines by boring, springs have been tapped, and ground thereby drained, either by letting the water down, or by giving it vent to the surface; and that the auger has been likewise used in bringing up water in wells, to save the expense of deeper digging; but that it had been used in draining land, before Mr. Elkington made that discovery, no one has ventured to assert."
Begging pardon of the shade of John Johnstone for the liberty, we will copy from Mr. Gisborne, as being more clearly expressed, a summary explanation of Elkington's system, as Mr. Gisborne has deduced it from Johnstone's report, with two simple and excellent plans:
"A slight modification of Johnstone's best and simplest plan, with a few sentences of explanation, will sufficiently elucidate Elkington's mystery, and will comprehend the case of all simple superficial springs. Perhaps in Agricultural Britain, no formation is more common than moderate elevations of pervious material, such as chalk, gravel, and imperfect stone or rock of various kinds, resting upon more horizontal beds of clay, or other material less pervious than themselves, and at their inferior edge overlapped by it. For this overlap geological reasons are given, into which we cannot now enter. In order to make our explanation simple, we use the words, gravel and clay, as generic for pervious and impervious material.
"Our drawing is an attempt to combine plan and section, which will probably be sufficiently illustrative. From A to T is the overlap, which is, in fact, a dam holding up the water in the gravel. In this dam there is a weak place at S, through which water issues permanently (a superficial spring), and runs over the surface from S to O. This issue has a tendency to lower the water in the gravel to the line M m. But when continued rains overpower this issue, the water in the gravel rises to the line A a, and meeting with no impediment at the point A, it flows over the surface between A and S. In addition to these more decided outlets, the water is probably constantly squeezing, in a slow way, through the whole dam. Elkington undertakes to drain the surface from A to O. He cuts a drain from O to B, and then he puts down a bore-hole, an Artesian well, from B to Z. His hole enters the tail of the gravel; the water contained therein rises up it: and the tendency of this new outlet is to lower the water to the line B b. If so lowered that it can no longer overflow at A or at S, and the surface from A to O is drained, so far as the springs are concerned, though our section can only represent one spring, and one summit-overflow, it is manifest that, however long the horizontal line of junction between the gravel and clay may be, however numerous the weak places (springs) in the overlap, or dam, and the summit-overflows, they will all be stopped, provided they lie at a higher level than the line B b. If Elkington had driven his drain forward from B to n, he would, at least, equally have attained his object; but the bore-hole was less expensive. He escapes the deepest and most costly portion of his drain. At x, he might have bored to the centre of the earth without ever realizing the water in this gravel. His whole success, therefore, depended upon his sagacity in hitting the point Z. Another simple and very common case, first successfully treated by Elkington, is illustrated by our second drawing.
"Between gravel hills lies a dish-shaped bed of clay, the gravel being continuous under the dish. Springs overflow at A and B, and wet the surface from A to O, and from B to O. O D is a drain four or five feet deep, and having an adequate outlet; D Z a bore-hole. The water in the gravel rises from Z to D, and is lowered to the level D m and D n. Of course it ceases to flow over at A and B. If Elkington's heart had failed him when he reached X, he would have done no good. All his success depends on his reaching Z, however deep it may lie. Elkington was a discoverer. We do not at all believe that his discoveries hinged on the accident that the shepherd walked across the field with a crow-bar in his hand. When he forced down that crow-bar, he had more in his head than was ever dreamed of in Johnstone's philosophy. Such accidents do not happen to ordinary men. Elkington's subsequent use of his discovery, in which no one has yet excelled him, warrants our supposition that the discovery was not accidental. He was not one of those prophets who are without honor in their own country: he created an immense sensation, and received a parliamentary grant of one thousand pounds. One writer compares his auger to Moses' rod, and Arthur Young speculates, whether though worthy to be rewarded by millers on one side of the hill for increasing their stream, he was not liable to an action by those on the other for diminishing theirs."
Johnstone sums up this system as follows:
"Draining according to Elkington's principles depends chiefly upon three things:
"1. Upon discovering the main spring, or source of the evil.
"2. Upon taking the subterraneous bearings: and,
"3dly. By making use of the auger to reach and tap the springs, when the depth of the drain is not sufficient for that purpose.
"The first thing, therefore, to be observed is, by examining the adjoining high grounds, to discover what strata they are composed of; and then to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the inclination of these strata, and their connection with the ground to be drained, and thereby to judge at what place the level of the spring comes nearest to where the water can be cut off, and most readily discharged. The surest way of ascertaining the lay, or inclination, of the different strata, is, by examining the bed of the nearest streams, and the edges of the banks that are cut through by the water; and any pits, wells, or quarries that may be in the neighborhood. After the main spring has been thus discovered, the next thing is, to ascertain a line on the same level, to one or both sides of it, in which the drain may be conducted, which is one of the most important parts of the operation, and one on which the art of draining in a scientific manner essentially depends.
"Lastly, the use of the auger, which, in many cases, is the sine qua non of the business, is to reach and tap the spring when the depth of the drain does not reach it: where the level of the outlet will not admit of its being cut to a greater depth; and where the expense of such cutting would be great, and the execution of it difficult.
"According to these principles, this system of draining has been attended with extraordinary consequences, not only in laying the land dry in the vicinity of the drain, but also springs, wells, and wet ground, at a considerable distance, with which there was no apparent connection."