Mole drainage implement

Image: © Trevor Rickard Taken: 11 Feb 2008

The 1926 and 1930 Land Drainage Acts and the Agricultural Act 1937 provided partial grants to farmers for improving drainage. However, digging trenches and laying clay pipes or tiles was expensive, so despite the grants, farmers often never recouped their own costs. As a result, the Ministry of Agriculture turned to investigating machinery. During the 1930s, machines based on those used for laying water supplies etc made little impact because the expense was still too high. The Ministry eventually put considerable energy into promoting mole drainage implements which could be tractor-drawn. The approach was to drag a pointed object at a constant level below the surface. To work, the land needed to be predominately clay to prevent soil crumbling from in-filling the hole. Land also needs to be on a slope to allow the water to run off below ground. Of course clay soils tended to be the wettest, so this method proved more popular. Even then, it was likely that repeat moleing would have been needed every five years or so. This implement looks to be about 1960 vintage and would have been a predecessor of today’s machines (but without the pipe layer part). http://www.groundsmanindustries.com/TCHydroDrive.htm

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