MAKAGEMENT of maesh lands, Sec. 77 



pear trees,— any easy remedy for them would be of immense 

 consequence ; and if her Highness can furnish any discovery- 

 relative thereto, it would confer a great service on the pub- 

 lic, and be esteemed by me a very particular obligation and 

 honour. 



I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, 



Samuel curtis. 



xii. 



On the Management of Marsh Lands, Irrigation, fyc. in a 

 Letter to a Friend* By Mr. Thomas Davis*. 



SIR, 



ITH respect to the management of Marsh Lands «/- Management 

 ter draining, the great desideratum is to make them per- °J marshlands 

 fectly dry — to get rid of the coarse aquatic grasses, and to »"v*i£- 



replace them with the finest and best grasses; and as the 

 latter root is much shallower than the former, they cannot 

 be made to thrive, unless the land is firm and close round 

 their roots. There are but few instances where land of this 

 description does not contain plenty of the best grasses, but 

 in such a weak and starved state, that you can scarcely see 

 them until the land is drained, and made so firm in its sur- 

 face as to discourage all the coarser, and encourage the finer 

 grasses, by bringing vegetation near the surface, and af- 

 fording a proper nidus for the small shallow root of the latter. 



But between the decay of the coarser grasses and the At first ges<^ 



establishment of a better kind, there will be an interregnum, ^yapp** 1 * 



° worse. 



in which the land will be worked very little ; in some instan- 

 ces less than before it was drained at all. The enclosures 

 and drainage of the marsh lands (called moors) in Somer- 

 setshire, and the fens in Lincolnshire, have shown this clearly, 

 and the same cause must produce the same effect every where. 

 For the first three or four years after the drainage, the 

 land has generally grown gradually worse; for two more, it 

 has been stationary ; and then, if well managed, and parti- Afterward un- 

 cularly by the help of a dry summer, it has improved ra- proves. 

 pidly, and will never, unless shamefully neglected, revert to 

 the former state. 



• Bath Society's Papers, vol. X, p. 324. 



But 



