The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-22 00:00:00

At a meeting of Garstang Farming Society, on Tues-
day, the 15th inst., a Mr. Wilson France gave the fol
lowing description of his mode of draining, a knowledge
of which will be acceptable we think to most of.our agri-
cultural readers :—Sir James Graham recommended tile
draining, the cost of which for draining and going
through with the subsoil plough, was 6/. 18s. 4d • per
statute acre. At the request of his friend, Mr. Lamb,
he would, with the permission of the meeting, describe
his way of draining. Instead of using tiles, he
drained with turf, which cost him 2s. 9d. per thou-
sand --viz., 2s. for cutting, 3d. for whins to dry, and
6d. for stacking. The next quettion was how many
turfs he should take to drain a rood. He cut them a
foot long, and 28 turfs would drain a rood of seven
yards. If 1,000 turfs cost him 2s. 9d., 28 would
cost him ld. He would now calculate the cost
of draining an acre of land, or thereabouts, to
avoid decimals. Suppose he said, 70 yards, and he
put the drains at 10 yards distance. Seven drains at 70
yards would give 490 yards of drainage, at 4d. per rood.
But the material cost him Id. per rood only, and there
was an important feature in the expense, the cartage of
turf; as compared to that of tiles, which he would al-
lude to presently. At present let him recommend to
the farmer not to put back his clay into the drain, but
to cart it to the next marl pit. There was then the
expense of cutting the drain, &c. 4d., of the turf, id.,
and of carting the turf to the field, and the clay from
the field, Id.—making 6d. a rood, and 70 sixpences
gave 1/. 15s. In the drains which had been executed
upon his property, he had joined with his tenant in the
expense. He gave the material, Id. ; his tenant
did the cartage of the turf and the clay, and of
the remaining fourpence he paid one half and the
tenant the other. And he had the pleasure to
state, that he had not met with a single tenant who
had not seen the benefit to himself of such an ar-
rangement. There was another point. He Mr. (W.F.)
liked to drain when labour was not only cheap, but when
employment for the labourer was most wanted. He
began therefore in November and finished in April, and
between November 1838 and April 1839, he had
drained 4,340 roods, or rather more than sixty acres on
his estate. The expense was a mere trifle, amounting
to nothing like 1001. If landlords would execute such
a portion of work every year they might soon drain the
whole of an estate of very respectable extent. He
had drained a meadow belonging to one of his tenants,
which gained the drainage prize at Preston, and the
first year after the work was executed, although he
had never obtained more than ten loads of hay, the
very next year he got twenty-nine loads. He did not
mean to say that in the generality of cases such striking
advantages would follow so soon, but that the tenant
would obtain an adequate return in seven years he was
fully persuaded. With respect to the formation of his
drains, he might state that they were 11 inches in breadth
at the top, and tapered off to the bottom to 21 inches.
The turf was 4 inches thick, and was cut to 6 inches,
but it dried up a little. The drains were 30 inches
deep, viz., 6 inches of swallow, 4 inches depth of turf,
and full 20 inches between the surface of the field, and
the top of the draining turf. Some persons adopted
the shouldering in a turf drain, but he did not, and
made it taper from 11 inches to 21 inches, in a regular
slope. The turf used was put in dry, and when the
wet came the turf extended and squeezed itself into a
firm position. Those wlio had not seen them could
have no idea of the difficulty of disturbing them. A
cart wheel would go over them without the slightest
displacement. Sir H. Fleetwood and Col. Rawstorne
recently examined some turf drains so executed, and on
coming down to the turf with the spade they found it
impossible to open the drain without breaking the turf,
so tightly did it adhere to the sides of the drain.
Neither were any of the drains filled up, as
had been supposed from the narrowness of
the drains at the bottom. The fact was, two and
a-half inches was quite wide enough ; it com-
pelled the water to run in a continuous stream, whereas
if spread over a greater surface it would run in eddies,
made deposits, and choke up the drain. Compare the
expense, too, of his material with that of Sir James
Graham's. His turf for draining one statute acre cost
him ss. 6d., whereas Sir James Graham's 1,500 tiles per
acre, at 30s. per 1,000, cost him 2/..55. Here was a
difference in the expense of material alone of 2/. an acre
—a very serious affair. If he were asked "Is the turf
drain as permanent as the tile ?,' he should say it was,
and rather more. Some turf drains, executed sixty
years ago, on the Rawcliffe estate were just as perfect
as if they had only been executed six days.—(Cheers).
Then with respect to the saving, in point of cart-
age, of turf over tiles. A double cart load of tiles
would not contain more than 400, whereas two
horses and a cart would carry 1,000 turf. The turf
drain, too, had its advantages over tile draining in the
supposition that each would he followed up by the sub•
soil plough. If, through any inequality of surface, you
hit your draining tile while subsoil ploughing, you spoil
your drain, whilst if, from the same cause of inequality of
surface, you pared off an inch from your turf, you could
spare it, for the turf would still be 3 inch thick, which
was sufficient to bear the pressure upon it. The bene-
fit of subsoil ploughing was, that substratum being
removed and broken, they became pervious to air and
moisture, and they all knew that plants would not grow
without being subjected to atmospheric influences. The
subsoil having been stirred and rendered pervious to air
and moisture, the superfluous water being removed,
the character of the soil was entirely changed ; it be-
came mellow and friable, and might, after a rotation of
crops, or five years, be brought to the top by deep
ploughing, and mixed with the surface soil to great ad-
vantage.—(Cheers.) Why had he laid so much stress
upon turf-draining ? Because, having the turf close at
hand, we were only doing right in availing ourselves of
these natural advantages. Sir James Graham himself
said, " It has always appeared to me that skill in agri-
culture does not so much consist in the discovery of
principles of universal application, as in the adaptation
of acknowledged principles to local circumstances." The
present was a case in point. He (Mr. Wilson France)
did not speak without knowing something of tile drain-
ing ; he had seen a good deal of it in Warwickshire,
and he had seen many a tile broken down, and many a
drain spoiled. While on this subject he might
mention that there was a Bill now before Parliament
for facilitating the drainage of England and Wales,
which contained an excellent clause compelling
landlords to deepen their water-courses ; at present you
could not call upon them to do more than score them,
This Bill was brought in by Mr. Handley, a Lincoln-
shire Member, whose acquaintance he (Mr. W. F.)
had recently made, and with whom he had a good deal
of conversation on the subject. Whether it was
through him (Mr. W. France) or something be had
said he did not know, but a very important clause had
been introduced into the Bill, for the improvement of
entailed land. The recent alteration of the law re-
garding the improvement of entailed property in Scot-
land had worked so beneficially that it was proposed to
introduce it into England. Such estates would then be
charged, as they ought to be, with the cost of their im-
provement. The Chairman concluded by giving a de-
scription of the spade used by him in cutting turf.

THE HARVEST.—We are now glad to announce
that the harvest in the district surrounding us is in a
great measure, if not entirely, at last brought to a con-
clusion. The oats will prove much better than was at
one time expected, but the accounts which have so far
reached us respecting the wheat crop, fully bear out what
we have previously said regarding its being sadly spoiled
by the late heavy and almost incessant rains, which
continued the greater part of the time when that crop
should have been brought to the barn or stack-yard.
Barley is somewhat complained of as being light, and
brought home in a softer condition than what is thought
conducive to its good quality, but we hope that the
damage done in each case will be found less than has
been for some time conjectured.— WestmorelandGazette.

CAPTURE OF TWO BOATS ENGAGED IN
SMUGGLING.—As the Harpy, revenue-cutter, Lieut. G.
Drew commander, was cruizing off the French coast, on
the 10th instant, she discovered two boats belonging to
Cawsand, the Union and Three Brothers, laden with
contraband spirits ; the Union having large temporary
wash streaks round her to enable her to carry a greater
cargo. Chase was given and both boats captured, but
not before the smugglers had sunk all the tubs and
thrown everything overboard, even their anchors, to
sink the cargo. The empty boats have been brought
to the Plymouth Custom House for being out of the
limits of their license.—Devonport Independent.