Draining is now truly regarded as a great national work, involving considerations of the highest moment, and bearing upon some of the most vital questions of our national policy.  It is a subject, therefore, the practical discussion of which is of the greatest importance, especially in reference to the mode in which it can be most efficiently and most cheaply done.  Into these points, Mr. Stephens enters minutely, and the course he prescribes is, we think, full of judgment.  He explains the Elkington mode of draining, and he gives due praise to the more recent improvements of Mr. Smith of Deanston.

Every one knows how difficult it is to persuade our practical men to adopt any new method; but even after you have satisfied them that the adoption of it will really do good to their farms, it is almost as difficult to persuade them, that a partial adoption of the method, or some alteration of it—­as they fancy some improvement of it—­will not best suit their land, or the circumstances in which they are placed.  Thus, one thinks, that a drain in each alternate furrow is enough for his soil—­that his drains need not be above twelve(!) or eighteen inches deep—­or that on his clay, the use of soles is a needless expense.  On all these points, the book before us gives confident opinions, with which we entirely coincide.

In regard to the depth of drains, it is shown, that in order that they may draw, they should never be shallower than thirty inches, and should always leave a depth of eighteen inches clear of the draining materials, in order that the subsoil and trench plough may have full freedom of action, without risk of injury to the drain; while of the use of soles he says—­

“I am a strenuous advocate for drainsoles in all cases; and even when they may really prove of little use, I would rather use too many, than too few precautions in draining; because, even in the most favourable circumstances, we cannot tell what change may take place beyond our view, in the interior of a drain, which we are never again permitted, and which we have no desire to see.”

This passage expresses the true principle of safety, by which, in the outlay of large sums of money for improvements, the landowner, and the holder of an improving lease, ought to be actuated.  Though great losses have already been incurred by shallow drains, and by the rejection of soles, the practice, especially in the more backward districts, still goes on, and thousands of pounds are still expended upon the principles of a false economy, in repetition of the same faulty practice.  We know of drainings now going on to a great extent, which will never permit the use of the subsoil plough; and of the neglect of soles, upon soils generally of clay, but here and there with patches of sand, into which the tiles must inevitably sink.  When a person drains his own land, of course reason is the only constraint by which