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dencies, with the neat little parlour, all float in streams none of the 

 bluest. A gentleman of this neighbourhood, whose elegant garden bor- 

 ders the Arun at a height of eight feet above the summer level of the 

 river, discovered in the high flood of 1843, that his gay parterres were 

 at last within the reach of the strongest assaults of his encroaching foe, 

 and has added a foot and a half to his garden wall, to be placed above 

 high-water-mark. Should a railroad ever be carried across our levels, 

 it will not be amiss to keep several feet clear of the high-water-mark, 

 out of regard to the probable emergencies of future generations. 



A botanist may be allowed to express his regrets at the gradual 

 merging of that richly prolific bog-land into pastures. Where mile 

 after mile of a wild, unchecked vegetation waved and rustled in the 

 wind, all rank with that freedom which the plant enjoys as well as the 

 animal, brilliant with those gaudy flowers, which, by the capricious 

 allotment of Nature adorn the inaccessible marsh even more profusely 

 than more attainable spots, and where tall sedges and rushes shared 

 the land with the delicate cranberry, — there, long, formal ditches have 

 been sliced out in all directions ; little by little, the peculiar Flora of 

 the bogs has disappeared, and the farmer calculates his profits, and 

 the landlord collects his rents, out of those territories which erewhile 

 profited none but the humble turf-cutter and our curious tribe. The 

 Pulborough brooks, now covered with a luxuriant herbage, retain no 

 signs of having once been a bog, but the existence of a rather coarse 

 sedge {Carex riparia), which alone has survived. The Amberley 

 Wild Brook, an immense tract for a county like Sussex, is feeling the 

 effects of deep drainage, and supports considerable herds of cattle. 

 I have never heard here of that plan being adopted which is so ex- 

 tensively carried on in the fens of Lincolnshre. I mean the process 

 of claying. Deep holes are dug through the peat until they reach 

 the clay, which is then thrown up, and scattered over the swampy 

 land till a firm ground is obtained, which eventually becomes fit for 

 cultivation. The wages of this work are 15s. a week. 



The Nutbourne peat-marsh is well entitled by its richness to be 

 the object of a botanical excursion. It is a mile from Pulborough 

 and very near Heath Mill, a long valley bordered on two sides by hills 

 deeply clothed with the finest heath. I wish it were some other than 

 the common Erica cinerea, but this and E. Tetralix are the only 

 Sussex species, though why we should have none of the Cornish spe- 

 cies too I cannot tell. This marsh and others in the vicinity are 

 known to be dangerous to persons not well acquainted with them. 

 The ground is so treacherous, and the imperfect path-ways are so per- 



