Agricultural drainage : a retrospective of forty years experience / J. Bailey Denton.
- John Bailey Denton
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Agricultural drainage : a retrospective of forty years experience / J. Bailey Denton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Extreme cheapness false economy, Real cause of prevailing disappoint- ment, 1854. (Note, 1883.) of the subject might be limited to the reading of Mr. Parkes's writings) has met an estimate of 5/. or 6/. an acre with the exclamation, that Mr. Parkes says he can drain at 3/. an acre; and when a distance of 21 or 24 feet apart between drains 4 feet deep has been recommended, the same landowner has ejaculated, But observe the instances quoted by Mr. Parkes of 4 feet drainage, in the Weald clay of Kent Mr. Parkes shows there that the work was done effectively by Mr. Hammond, at 50 feet apart, with inch-pipes, for i/. iis. gd. In the desire for economy^ soils that should have been drained from 18 to 25 feet apart, have been drained at from 30 to 45 feet, and yet the average actual cost of parallel drainage, executed in Great Britain within the last eight years, will be found to be at least three times the cost here instanced by Mr, Parkes, and which he gave, in 1846, as a guide to future cost of drainage in this country. I have laid considerable stress upon the fact that under-draining was first introduced, as a general (government) system, under the false pretensions of extraordinary cheapness, because I consider that to that fact, and to the influence of the overdrawn theory, that depth governs the distances between drains, is to be attributed the discredit which has fallen upon deep drainage. [These are the views I expressed thirty years back, and which I have repeated on numerous occasions since, when called upon to give evidence, or to express any opinion publicly on the subject. Every day's ex- perience has only strengthened them. At the time the paper now reprinted was read (1854) the amount of money expended under the control of the Inclosure Commissioners did not reach two and a half millions sterling. At the present moment (18S3), when there has been upwards of eight millions of borrowed capital expended in draining alone, and probably more than one and a half million acres of the land drained with the money, the public mind appears to be as far off as ever from a clear conception of what has prevented deep drainage from being in- variably satisfactory, and it is to be feared that this country, and other countries too, may run to reverse extremes to avoid disappointment.] In the time that has transpired since the passing of the Public Moneys Drainage Act, 1846, up to the year 1854, the average cost of under-drainage has been found to be not less than 3/. per acre, as declared by Mr. Parkes to be the outside cost (see Vol. VI, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, p. 126), but more than 5/. per acre.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21782568_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
