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General view of the agriculture of the county of Somerset : with observations on the means of its improvement. Drawn up in the year 1795, for the consideration of the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement. By John Billingsley, Esq; ... and now re-printed with considerable additions and amendments, .. / John Billingsley
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AGRICULTURAL. SURVEY

CHAPTER

k YN ®

IMPROVE NEEON ES:

ID XCEPTING ſome peat turf on Blackdown,-there is — ſcarcely any fenny land to be met with. On ſoils any ways inclined to a weeping ſurface, great attention is paid to draining, which is done by digging the drains deep, filling part of them with clean picked ſtones, and covering with earth to the depth of ſix or eight inches. Where ſiones are ſcarce, ſhoulder trenching is praiſed, but theſe are liable to be filled up with the workings of the mole,+ unleſs water conſtantly runs in them.#* On the whole, perhaps open drains are preferable to covered on graſs land.

All tenants are reſtri&ted in their leaſes from paring and burning, and the practice 1s ſcarcely known.

+ The workings of the mole are a very ſlender objedtion to fhe uſe of ſhoulder trenc

o; for 1f the pipe be ſunk two feet deep mn the

clay, as it always ought to be, it is very rarely ſtopped; but if it ſhould ſo happen, the’ remedy is eaſy without much coſt or labour. In point of expence, it is three-fourths cheaper than ſtone draining, the average price of the former being three-pence per rope of twenty feet, of the latter one ſhilling. If the drain be cut eleven inches wide, the ſhoulder left four inches on each ſide of the pipe or channel, the inverted turf will have a firm bearing of cight parts in eleven; and it muſt be very rotten indeed, if the remainder three inches ever fall in. Of near a hundred acres adjoining each other, thus drained in the laſt three years» not one pipe has yet been ſtopped by the working of the mole or otherwiſe, though the lands are ſkirted by a large wood; and woods

are very freguently a ſecure retreat and nurſery for that animal. R.P.

* The great f>ill of draining land conſiſts in cutting of the water at its ſource. One deep drain, judiciouſly placed, will frequently pre- clude the neceſſity of any other; in moſt inſtances, ſuch a drain ſhould be near that part of the declivity from which the ſprings iffue. This

poſition of the clayey ſubſtratum, and on the height

aepends on the j

of

 
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