spoutyadj.

1677 Sheriffhall Coal Acct. Bks. 3 Feb. in Dict. Older Sc. Tongue (at cited word) For mending of the spoutie stair [in a coal mine].

1708 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 26 62 The place was cover'd with a Scurf of wet spouty Earth about a Foot thick.

a1735 Earl of Haddington Short Treat. Forest-trees 6 in J. G. Reid Scots Gardiner (1756) I..find it thrive in rich, poor, middling, heathy, gravelly, spouty, clay and mossy ground.

1746 Rep. Conduct Sir J. Cope 139 A Column of them in Disorder were coming along westwards under a ‘spouty’ bank.

1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm I. 505 I have frequently made lines of drains across the spouty sloping faces of fields.

1859 in L. R. Hafen Overland Routes to Gold Fields (1942) 85 Several buildings..add to the lonesome and dreary appearance of a vast wet, spongy, spouty prairie.

1892 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 472/2 Oak would root itself firmly in the valleys,..alder in swamps and spouty land.

1918 J. A. King Tile Drainage x. 32 The surplus water from the soil above the spouty place is caught and carried away by the tile.

1962 Agric. in N. Ireland 37 15 The ‘spouty’ areas and the wetter parts of the field must be drained before any big improvement can be made.

1757 R. Maxwell Pract. Husbandman 299 It is not possible to bring Ground into good Order without curing it of Spoutiness, and freeing it of any Stagnation of Water.

1769 J. Farquharson in Surv. Lochtayside (1936) 27 There are no rivulets or burns thro' the lower part of this farm which occasions a great spoutiness.

1808 J. Robertson Gen. View Agric. Inverness 26 The extent of spouty land..must be very considerable, and this spoutiness..demonstrates the great extent of till in the county of Inverness.

1865 19th Ann. Rep. Ohio State Board Agric. 1864 494 ‘Spoutiness’ is easily remedied by underdraining.