Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 2, 1802).djvu/181

Rh any water continue to penetrate the morass, it may be conducted to the extremity of the ground, either in open drains, or in covered brick drains, of which we have annexed the following cuts:



This figure represents a hollow brick, two of which, being placed one upon the other, form the pipe, which is chiefly useful tor making small drains.



D, D, are two bricks placed opposite each other, and then covered with E, a stone on the top, in which situation they will form a large drain.—The mould pressing on the sides of the bricks, keeps them firm and steady: the turf taken off the soil, ought to be laid upon the stone, with the grass side downwards.

The draining of low moist lands may also be advantageously effected by a roller or wheel. This is made of cast-iron, weighs 4cwt. and is 4 feet in diameter: The cutting edge, or extreme circumference of the wheel, is half an inch thick, which, increasing in thickness towards the nave or centre, will cut a drain half an inch in width at the bottom, 4 inches wide at the top, and about 15 inches deep. This wheel is so placed in a frame, that it may be loaded at pleasure, in order to score out a greater or less depth, according to the resistance of the ground; which being thus cut during the winter, the wheel-tracks are either then filled with straw ropes, and lightly covered over, or left to crack wider and deeper, during the succeeding summer; when the fissures should be kept open with twisted straw and bushes, and lightly covered with such porous soil as can be most conveniently procured. Thus hollow drains may be formed upon grass or ley-land, at little expence, and will answer every useful purpose.

The necessity and utility of draining the surface-water from clay soils, in wet seasons, is generally acknowledged; but, excellent as the different methods are in the cases before mentioned, they do not appear to be so simple, or so effectual, as could be wished in the present. Covered drains frequently fail in producing the desired effect, in consequence of the covering materials being of too close a texture to admit the water to filtrate through them with sufficient freedom. Mole-ploughs, of the best construction, require such a number of horses to draw them, as must necessarily injure the soil, by poaching it. Farther, covered drains are not only dangerous to full-grown sheep and young lambs, but from the quantity of clay necessarily dug up, and spread over the richer surface-soil, they are also injurious to vegetation. None of the several modes of draining now in use, being subservient to the essential purpose of conducting large quantities of water from a deep soil, we feel satisfaction in communicating the following simple contrivance of Mr., just published in the 22d No. of the "Commercial and Agricultural Magazine." It consists merely in adding a piece of wood to the felly of a common six-inch