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

TO THE EDITO.

Sut,—The following remarks on the not uninte-
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
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—
" Picce 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 not filled up. The primary drains
which exhaust the moisture frcm the ground shou Id
be absolutely horizontal, if a spirit level or durnpy
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 meus hic sermo, sed quern prcecepit Ofellus.
DECLA RATION.—I, John Casselden, of Southborough,
county of Kent, land-drainer, do solemnly and sincerely
declare I have madd 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 caterwise and as near level as possible
just to let the water cff. Each drain cuts off the water
from the ground below it, and does no good to the ground
higher up the slop". 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 H. M. Justices or the
Peace: 5 and 6 W. IV. forbidding all declarations in
which the magistrates have no statutable jurisdiction.
As yet we have not legislated on down-bill 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 hill, 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—modis miris, incertis moribus, by some
hydraulic paradox, into that same drain, es 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. citat.

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 cevum, 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, theologimm 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 Quixote or even
Sancho compiling biography, is to believe that Cer-
vantes could take windmills for giants, or kiss 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, some beloved presumption or unex-
amined supposition," from which men too often
argue. Such is the notion that water requires a
good fall—incompatible moreover with the well known
postulate—Water finds its level. On this principle
depends the existence of Holland, where old Ocean,
lifting !lisp/acidity& 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' colmate and other great works to economy
of fall ! ! If any declivity were required, Egypt
would never have been metropolis or mother country
of European and Asiatic civilization—Osiris, the
Egypt;.an god, would never have prescribed bread and
wine, nor the hero Sesostris carried the mysteries of
Ceres and Bacchus to all nations. How can the Nile
below the cataracts fall a single barleycorn when the
Delta is continually rising?
" Ostia septem
Fulverulenta vocat, septem sine flumine relies."
The following sentences you were kind enough to
pi 'int, several years ago
s" Water will traverse a dead level with great rapidity;
wi r:kess the current of an estuary, flowing equally fast
in opposite directions, or observe a placid stream, Cum
pac e delabeL't Etruscum in maid,' and again the same
str, ea; xt—

Cum fera diluvies quietus

Irritat amnes.'
A ea mmon flower -pot also affords illustration : the fluid
rises out of the oLmacer by capillary gravitation faster
than it will descend from the surface: now, if it rises
slow], y and descends with difficulty, one may conclude it
e 'cult I prefer a iQvc.; !2ettroe. By wearing away of °bottl-
e! ca, and filling of Ito liPws, vii channels have a tendency
to obey the general la w 1 and a navigable river, if not a
st ries of levets, would eveessarily be a torrent or rapid.
Stei -when. the course choceti is much inclined, the sticks
ti ad stone? (the ' lapides st,-lesos stirpesque raptas' of the
pet in u iDiature) soon ris 9 to the ceiling of the drain,
unle'S the latter is far more capacious than economical,re-
gard being had to carting of materials—but if the drain is
horizontal the smallest thread of channel will suffice.
Mr. Smith, of whom it is impossible to speak without
gratitude, hadti e quently observ.ll that `the water wore
away theta rth and the tiles fellattributes
to configara4 ion of tiles, but the declivity is the cause.