10 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



the water from a higher level would accumulate on the sur- 

 face of the land, and the drainage of a whole district might 

 be prevented. Therefore, no reasonable person, on reflec- 

 tion, could say that any objection could properly be made 

 to promote such a measure as he had indicated. It was in 

 accordance with English law that land should be taxed to 

 carry out these necessary improvements. Every one knew 

 of instances of the kind. In his own county there were 

 the Romney Marshes, with regard to which the principle 

 had existed from time immemorial, and he need scarcely 

 mention the case of the Bedford Level, with which all 

 were acquainted. liandowners had no more right to 

 object to the making of proper watercourses through their 

 estates than they had to prevent a highway or a railway 

 over them being constructed (Hear, hear). Nothing was 

 more important to a country than the development of its 

 agriculture, and it was now generally admitted that nothing 

 was more destructive to agriculture than the prevention of 

 a good system of drainage (Hear hear). These were the 

 general grounds on which he thought the course suggested 

 ought to be taken. In 1852 a bill was presented to parlia- 

 ment on the subject, but it did not pass, and since then the 

 evil it was designed to remedy had gone on steadily in- 

 creasing, owing to the improvements in drainage. Parlia- 

 ment and the government had greatly assisted in bringing 

 about that state of things, for while doing an undoubted 

 good they had overlooked the consequences to which it 

 would lead. Under acts of parliaments the public money 

 wa3 lent to landowners to enable them to drain 

 their lands, and bills had been passed empowering com- 

 panies to afford facilities to them for a similar purpose. 

 Exactly the same thing, in fact, had been done with regard 

 to land which was done respecting the sewage of London. 

 Every facility was given for conveying sewage to the river, 

 but what would become of it when it got there was never 

 thought of (Hear, hear). There were great efforts to 

 deliver lands from water, but no provision whatever had 

 been made to get rid of that water after it had accumulated, 

 although that was a matter of the utmost importance 

 (Hear, hear). He supposed that some gentleman would be 

 prepared to recommend the adoption of some specific course 

 for attaining the object they had in view ; and probably 

 one of tbeir proceedings would be the appointment of a 

 committee (cheers). He had received a letter from the Dean 

 of Christ Church, Oxford, which, with the permission of 

 the meeting, he would read. It was as follows : 



" Christ Church, Oxford, Dec. 11,1860. 



" My Lord, — I regret exceedingly that duties to be per- 

 formed in Oxford make it impossible for me to attend the 

 meeting over which you are to preside to-morrow. Noplace 

 can suffer much more than Oxford from obstructions to the 

 free outfal of the flood waters. For nearly a year, with the 

 exception of an occasional fortnight, our valley has been 

 itnder water. The University has already agreed to a peti- 

 tion to parliament to remove certain legislative obstacles to 

 free drainage. The city will, I doubt not, take the same 

 course. And I trust the landowners, whose property has 

 suffered so terribly during these months of flood, will join 

 us. I hope that the Government will be prepared to intro- 

 duce a general bill to remedy the grievous evils induced by 

 local acts, artificial instructions and all other causes not 

 removable without legislative interference.— I have the 

 honour to be, my lord, your obedient servant, 



" Henrv G. Liddkll, Dean of Christ Church, Oxon." 



Sir H. Vavasour said : If the existing statutes relating 

 to the drainage of laud have been found comparatively of 

 little use in ordinary seasons, they have proved quite in- 

 sufficient in this extraordinary year. It must be obvious to 



persons even little conversant with agricultural operations 

 that the present must be a disastrous year to the farmer ; 

 but it is impossible for the resident in a town to realize 

 the state of the country; nor can the inhabitant of a hilly 

 or even an undulating district form a correct notion of the 

 extent to which the low arable grounds are injured. The 

 occupant of a bill farm has the rain of to-day, and perhaps 

 of yesterday, to contend with; but the lowlauder has that of 

 to-day, of yesterday, of last week, and the week before last, 

 to grapple with. In the month of October, I asked an old 

 man whether he ever remembered a season like the present. 

 He said, " Yes, seventy-five years ago." The ordinary 

 amount of rain at Chiswick in the twelve months is 24 

 inches: the quantity fallen this year up to this day, omitting 

 decimals, is 29 ; but, after all, it is not so much the excess 

 of rain that is so injurious to farm produce, as the length of 

 time the water remains in the soil. The earliest statute 

 bearing upon our subject is the 6lh of Henry VI. (a.d. 

 1427), authorising the Chancellor of England to grant a 

 commission for ten years. A number of statutes of the 

 same kind were passed from time to time in succeeding 

 reigns. The preamble to the 23rd of Henry VIII., cap. 5, 

 after the first few words, has this sentence : " Nothing 

 earthly so highly weighing as the advancing of the common 

 profit, wealth, and commodity of his realm," in which 

 patriotic sentiment the subjects of her present Majesty 

 doubtless will concur. The most recent of these acts is, I 

 believe, the 3rd and 4th of William IV., cap. 22, A com- 

 mission has lately been applied for under these acts, to take 

 effect in a district with which I am acquainted, and con- 

 siderable benefit might arise did not one or two districts 

 under the jurisdiction of local acts intervene between a por- 

 tion of the level and the natural outfall, a great tidal river. 

 A commission is, I hear, in force in Lincolnshire; with what 

 success I do not know. This brings us near Lord Lincoln's 

 act, upon which no doubt many persons are prepared to offer 

 a more competent opinion than myself. If, however, all 

 these acts were in themselves efScient, large tracts of coun- 

 try would remain in tbeir present miserable plight, from the 

 operation of local acts which remain untouched by any 

 general statute. Until, therefore, these local acts are spe- 

 cially improved, little general good will be effected. I will 

 now endeavour to show how these provincial acts, as I may 

 term them, clash with the imperial. A has an estate, say 

 35 feet above the sea, which he underdrains, thereby send- 

 ing an additional quantity of water upon neighbour B's 

 land : a little lower, C, who marches with B, finding himself 

 uncomfortable from the improvements going on above him, 

 asks for an inspection of his estate under the Inclosure 

 Office, and receives a grant, being told to commence "hard 

 all," otherwise it will be a lapse legacy : he succeeds in 

 expending the money, and hopefully waits the result. But 

 now come the troubles — first one tenant presents himself, 

 then another, to comijlain of bad drainage. B's tenants 

 become clamorous, and A's anxious. These three vexed 

 spirits lay their heads together, and find, to their consterna- 

 tion, they have commenced operations at the wrong end : 

 small thready drains extend in every direction, but the 

 common oulfall remains as before, a sluggish, meandering 

 stream, running into a navigable canal, at the junction with 

 which the course of the water is still further impeded by a 

 dam, over which the water flows three feet deep ; the local 

 act directing that the said dam should be " pulled up " M 

 whenever the water runs more than four inches over it. m 

 True, say the trustees, the act saya so, but it does not say 

 so to us: this it says to the commissioners who cut the 



