"Some rules were undoubtedly necessary when the Commissioners first commenced dispensing the public money, and I do not express my objection to the absurd position to which these rules are bringing us, from any disrespect to them, nor with an idea that any better course could have been followed by the Government, in the first instance, than the adoption of the 'Parkes—Smith frequent drain system.' This system was correctly applied, and continues to be correctly applied, to absorbent and retentive soils requiring the aeration of frequent drains to counteract their retentive nature; but it is altogether misapplied when adopted in the outcropping surfaces of the free water-bearing strata, which, though equally wet, are frequently drained by a comparatively few drains, at less than half the cost.
"The only circumstance that can excuse the indiscriminate adoption of a parallel system, is the fact, that all drains do some good, and the chances of a cure being greater in proportion to the number of drains, it was not necessary to insist upon that judgment which ten years' experience should now give.
"My views on this point will perhaps be best understood by the following extract from an address I recently delivered. [Extract omitted, see p. 161].
* * * "I use one and a half inch pipes for the upper end of drains (though I prefer two-inch), one half being usually one and a half and the other half two-inch. This for minor drains; the mains run up to 9 or 10 inches, and even 18 inches in size, according to their service.
"There is no doubt sufficient capacity in one-inch pipes for minor drains; but, inasmuch as agricultural laborers are not mathematical scholars, and are apt to lay the pipes without precise junctions, it is best to have the pipes so large as to counteract that degree of carelessness which cannot be prevented. The ordinary price of pipes in this country will run thus: + meaning above, and-below, the prices named:
| 1½ | inch | 15s. | + |
| 2 | " | 20s. | - |
| 3 | " | 30s. | |
| 4 | " | 40s. | + |
| 5 | " | 50s. | + |
| 6 | " | 60s. | + |
"The price of cutting clays 4 feet deep, will vary from 1d. to 1½d. per yard, according to density and mixture with stone; and the price of cutting in mixed soils will vary from 1½d. to 6d., according to the quantity of pick-work and rock, and with respect, also, to the price of agricultural labor. (See my tabular table of cost in Land Drainage and Drainage Systems.)
"I should have thought it would have been quite worth the while of the American Government to have had a farm of about 500 acres, drained by English hands, under an experienced engineer, as a practical sample of English work, for the study of American agriculturists, with every drain laid down on a plan, with the sizes of the pipes, and all details of soil, and prices of labor and material, set forth.
"I am, dear Sir,
"Yours very faithfully,
"The Hon. H. F. French, Exeter. "J. BAILEY DENTON."