The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-11 00:00:00

TO THE EDITO.

SlR,—The following remarks on the not uninte- I
resting subject of Draining may find a place in The
Sun during the lull which precedes and follows our
animated Parliamentary debates. A glance of inspec-
tion at the scheme or diagram prefixed might serve
to convince your readers that all primary or working
drains should be drawn horizontally or nearly so ; but
my object is rather to give the testimony of a village I
sage speaking from personal and hereditary experience.
The immense damage of the system every where
adopted is our apology for so unusual a frontispiece,
necessarily on a small scale to suit the columns of a
newspaper. Here you have the provisam rem which
you may translate into verba non improvisa—
"Picee out our imperfectiions by your thoughts
Minding true things by what their mockeries are."
As the ground which requires draining is com-
monly on a slope, the connecting or receiving drains,
as Q, which empty the primary ones, must of course
run down-hill, but they should be few—so that, form-
ing part of the boundary fence if possible, they may
be left open and rot filled up. The primary drains
which exhaust the moisture frcm the ground should
be absolutely horizontal, if a spirit level or dumpy
can be found, and nearly so if laid out by a six feet
mason's level fitted with short legs to stilt up the
straight edge above the inequalities of the ground.
Nec nseus hic serino, sed quern, preecepit Ofellus.
DECLARATION.—I, John Casselden, of Southborough,
county of Kent, land-drainer, do solemnly and sincerely
declare I have made forty thousand rod of drain in my
time. I have had as much experience as any man round
these parts and I know [as my father did before me
and my grandmother too] that drains running straight
down the hill can never lay the ground dry : they
should be drawn cateru'ise and as near level as possible
just to let the water off. Each drain cuts off the water
from the ground below it, and does no good to the ground
higher up the slope. I will bring fifty men to make a
declaration like this, and I think it a great pity so much
money should be thrown away on drains leading down
the hills round here, and I make this solemn declaration
conscientiously, believing the same to be true.—[Not
made and subscribed before one of 11. M. Justices of the
Peace: 5 and 6 W. IV. forbidding all declarations in
which the magistrate 4 bare no statutable jurisdiction.
As yet we bare not legislated on down-hill draining.]
Thus far the excellent Casselden. The moisture
which clings to the subsoil (see diagram) being de-
rived into the horizontal drain higher up the slope of
the bill, is not affected by drain Q however useful the
said Q in his way—and still less if possible is the
moisture of any area exhausted by the drain lower
down. The Casseldenian theory, übi supra, goes no
further. I venture to add. The surface or rain-
water falling on the area below each drain also finds
its way—nwdis minis, incertis moribus, by some
hydraulic paradox, into that same drain, ex post facto.
A given time after a given shower, walking with a
foot each side the drain, you find the upper foot give
the unmistakeable inkling of swamp—the lower, not.
Here the drying of the ground lower than the drain
must be ascribed to the surface water being sucked
back into the drain, besides the grand principle of
cutting of the water before it comes to the surface.—
See J. C. loc. citut.
The horizontal drain can be almost of any length—
the water does not run out, but merely " weeps," and '
it is a great satisfaction after rain to see the nymphs
gently weeping at their fountains. See arrow-headed
characters in diagram.
The man of letters may expect the water to find
its way into the down-hill drain, Q. I doubt it.
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis avum, and will
never march up along the side of the hill unless incul-
cated by drains to that effect. Your reporter is
betrayed into quoting Latin—facit indignatio versus
—but let him not be misunderstood—" his raptures
are not conjured up to serve occasions of poetic
pomp." Before he took to Claypatch here in the
weald, he had been tenant-farmer several years in
Ireland, piteous Ireland, dulcifying the odium agreste,
odium Novercale, theologicum AND vatinianum re-
spectively, pacifying a cloud of taxgatherers, with
much experience of landlordism, he lifted the chains
they wore and found them heavy, he tasted the
bitter mess set before them—total a dozen years

toil and moil, cark and care, wear and tear of
mind and body, making a few specks of earth
greener, so that his short and simple annals
may be found on parish books in connexion with
the mysteries of rating: the opinions offered
are practical, and, what is more, practicable ; they
are not, like much advice offered to patient farmers,
admirable—and impossible. It appears that Mr.
Smith, of Deanston, never held land till 1843, and
possibly has not found it answer.
The reader, tired perhaps of exhaustive methods,
may demur, and ask if your correspondent can lay
the ground as dry as the subject ? Surely, a person
may understand underdraining without being able to
" read and write well." Lever is not Lorrequer, nor
even Nimrod--the man who thinks is seldom the very
same man that rides—he that makes books will not
have time to make love. To imagine Quixute or even
Sancho compiling biography, is to believe that Cer-
vantes could take windmills for giants, or le;ss good
Dapple. In a double return of this sort the choice
of Hercules was for hard work and delving—he left
the Muses to their own Apollo, and so far one may
imitate him without presumption.
MEMORANDUM.—" It is not the evidence of
truth," said Locke, " but some lazy anticipa-
tion, s.;me beloved presumption or unex-
amined supposition," from which men too often
argue. Such is the notion that water requires a
goad fall—incompatible moreover with the well known
postulate—Water finds its level. On this principle
depends the existence of Holland, where old Ocean,
lifting his placid= caput,
"Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile,"
and yet a very able reviewer lately spoke of Dutch-
men " economising the fall !" The Tuscan artist
understands these things : yet Sismondi, a Swiss, in
his beautiful Tableau de l' Agriculture toscane, at-
tributes the co/mate and other great works to economy
of NW If any declivity were rcquil ed, Egypt
would never have been metropolis or mother country
of European and Asiatic civilization—Osiris, the
Egyptian god, would never have prescribed bread and
wine, nor the hero Sesostris carried the mysteries of
Ceres and Bacchus to all nations. 110-W can the Nile
below the cataracts fall a single barleycorn when the
Delta is continually rising ?

" Oitia septem
Pulverulenta vocat, septem sine fluorine vanes."
The following sentences you were kind enough to
print, several years ago :
" Water will traverse a dead level with great rapidity;
witness the current of an estuary, flowing equally fast
in opposite directions, or observe a placid stream, Cum
pace delabentis Etruscum in maze,' and again the same
stream—

• Cum fern diluvies quietus

Irritat amnes.'
A common flower-pot alio affords illustration: the fluid
rises out of the saucer by capillary gravitation faster
than it will descend from the surface: now, if it rises
slowly and descends with difficulty, one may conclude it
would prefer a level course. By wearing away of obsta •
des, and filling of hollows, all channels have a tendency
to obey the general law; and a navigable river, if not a
series of levels, would necessarily be a torrent or rapid.
So when the course chosen is much inclined, the sticks
and stones (the lapides adesos stirpesquo raptas' of the
poet in miniature) soon rise to the ceiling of the drain,
unless the latter is far more capacious than economical,rc-
gard being had to carting of materials—but if the drain is
horizontal the smallest thread of channel will suffice.
air. Smith, of whom it is impossible to speak without
gratitude, had frequently observed that 'the water wore
away the earth and thd tiles fell in:' this he attributes
to configuration of tiles, but the declivity is the cause.