Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The normal way to drain agricultural land was to use a mole plough to dig a subterranean drainage channel. The mole plough has a vertical blade with a cylindrical "mole" attached to the bottom. The mole is pointed at the front end, and as it moves through the soil, it leaves a horizontal channel into which porous drainage pipes can be laid.
The subsurface field drainage systems consist of horizontal or slightly sloping channels made in the soil; they can be open ditches, trenches, filled with brushwood and a soil cap, filled with stones and a soil cap, buried pipe drains, tile drains, or mole drains, but they can also consist of a series of wells.
Mole ploughs are used to create tile drainage, with or without tiles or tile line added. A form of this implement (with a single blade), a pipe-and-cable-laying plough , is used to lay buried cables or pipes, without the need to dig a deep trench and re-fill it.
The mole plough allows under-drainage to be installed without trenches, or breaks up the deep impermeable soil layers that impede it. It is a deep plough with a torpedo or wedge-shaped tip and a narrow blade connecting it to the body.
Johnston, the "father of tile drainage in America", [12] continued to advocate for tile drainage throughout his life, attributing his agricultural success to the formula "D, C, and D", i. e., dung, credit, and drainage. [13] The expansion of drainage systems was an important technical aspect of Westward Expansion in the United States in the ...
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
Other implements could include a mole drainer, used to create an underground drainage channel or pipe, or a dredger bucket for dredging rivers or moats. The engines were frequently provided with a 'spud tray' on the front axle, to store the 'spuds' which would be fitted to the wheels when travelling across claggy ground.