ON RECLAIMING WASTE LANDS. Q5 



t.ection which has ever characterised the liberality of the 

 Society; and that I shall feel highly honoured, if they con- 

 ceive what I have communicated deserving- any mark of 

 their favour. 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Your most obedient humble servant, 



THOMAS SADDINGTON. 



IV. 



On Reclaiming Waste Lands. By Mr. Wagstaffe*. 



Gentlemen, Norwich, June 27, 1801. 



.S your influence for the enclosure of Waste Land is Wasteland 

 confessed, and, I conceive, extending within the scope of 

 your Society, and it should now seem on the eve of a Par- 

 liamentary encouragement ; I ask leave to recite dri expe- 

 riment I made on a portion of land, of as obvious fterility 

 as perhaps any present waste within the Western counties. 



This was an acclivity, which had not been cultivated described. 

 within memory ; and at the foot of it a various tract, gra- 

 velly and moory, broken into hollow spaces, in which waters 

 rested during the summer months, which waters were 

 covered with most of the aquatic plants native to stagnant 

 pools. My predecessor in possession of these watery wastes, 

 during a summer drought, fed their interstices with sheep, 

 which became diseased, and many of them rotten. 



The mode I pursued was as much as might be to extract steps taken to 

 the weeds, roots, and sediment; lay them in heaps as a im J? r(yve **• 

 preparation of manure measurably to 'replace and fertilize 

 the barren sands and gravel, brought from the heights to 

 rill up these hollows. I then opened ditches, raised their 

 sides with sand and gravel, and on them planted large cut- 

 tings of poplars and willows. The ditching drained the 

 soil, and the materials from the heights raised; this swamp 



* Bath Paper*, vol, X, p. 18. 



to 



