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:

1-1/2 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
1-1/2d. per yard, according to density and mixture with stone; and
the price of cutting in mixed soils will vary from 1-1/2d. 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
t