Natural History, 93 



1751, to guide travellers over the heath. Beyond the woods 

 of Blankney rises at the edge of the fen, the massive square of 

 Tattershall Castle, built by Lord Cromwell, Treasurer to 

 Henry VIII. ; and still following the same direction, that 

 slight-looking column on the skyline is Boston 'stump,' over- 

 looking the never-ending fen. 



Again, drive from Spalding to Boston in the latter part of 

 August, along one of those long, straight fen roads, bordered 

 with pollard willow and flanked by wide drains ; from each 

 reed-bed comes the rattling song of the sedge warbler, and 

 here the reed-wren suspends her nest ; the white or yellow 

 cups of water lilies float on the peat-stained dike, and beneath 

 the shadow of their rounded leaves we detect close-packed 

 shoals of roach. On each side ripening sheets of corn extend 

 to the horizon, or long rows of closely-placed c stooks ' stand in 

 serried ranks like the encampment of an army nowhere else in 

 England can we see oats and wheat with such length of straw 

 and size of head ; then there are beanfields where each stalk is 

 suggestive of that climbed by Jack in his search for the Giant's 

 home ; stretches of golden mustard, now in full flower ; fields 

 of dark-green swedes or light-green mangolds, of which each 

 root would not disgrace the stall of the seedsman in the 

 Agricultural Hall. Mighty oxen browse lazily the rich 

 pastures, dotted too with big Lincoln wethers, whose recently 

 shorn fleeces weigh from ten to even twenty pounds. From 

 every side comes the sound of busy labour the noisy rattle of 

 the reaping machines, creaking of the laden wains, and the 

 rustle of sheaves as they are pitched on the load ; and all this 

 under a sky which for intensity of blue and freedom from coal 

 smoke, might compare with that of Southern Europe. Seeing 

 all this, we may well exclaim with Cobbett that c everything 

 taken together, here in Lincolnshire are more good things than 

 man could have had the conscience to ask of God.' 



