DRAINAGE. 65 



by a complete drainage have become salubrious, and are now 

 upon an average standard of longevity with other parts of the 

 country. The question of the expediency of draining, in some 

 cases, resolves itself, as in the case of the redemption of peat or 

 other waste lands, into a question of the value of the land after 

 being reclaimed. The cost of drainage may, in some instances, 

 be more than the land is worth after the drainage is effected, or 

 it may be quite equal to its value ; but, if it be worth nothing in 

 its undrained condition, the operation may be considered as an 

 actual purchase of the land ; and the real satisfaction which a 

 good mind finds in effecting such improvements, and the useful 

 employment of labor, and the productive investment of capital, 

 may all operate as reasonable and strong inducements to such 

 undertakings. 



2. EXTENT OF DRAINAGE, AND EMBANKMENT AGAINST THE SEA. 

 The tracts of land which have been redeemed by drainage of 

 the first kind referred to, in England, are very great. I mean 

 now to speak of lands which were either covered by the sea at 

 every tide, or by occasional overflowings, or by the rivers which 

 bounded these lands being, at occasional high tides, forced back, 

 to the overflowing of the adjacent lands, or, otherwise, by the 

 waters, from higher grounds, which flowed into these lands, not 

 finding a ready exit into the sea. These lands, which were 

 thus rendered mere bogs, in many cases scarcely accessible, or. 

 otherwise, only wastes producing nothing, have, by drainage 

 and cultivation, become the most productive in the kingdom. 



I have a good deal of diffidence in stating the extent of these 

 redeemed lands, because I have not found it possible to authen 

 ticate, as fully and as exactly as I could wish, the statements 

 which have been made to me, and I am a little at a Joss as to 

 the geography of the district. The level of Ancholme district 

 is represented as containing 50,000 acres.* This amount is 



* &quot;The level of Ancholme consists of a tract of low land, situated on the south 

 side of the River Humber, about ten miles below its junction with the River 

 Trent, and contains about 50,000 acres of land, of which only about 17,000 acres 

 are subject to taxation. The district is bounded on the east by an elevated rido - e 

 of chalk hills, extending 1 from the Humber, for a distance of nearly twenty-four 

 miles north and south ; about 100,000 acres of the land of this rid^e drain into 

 T hs Ancholme. On thp v.-?st there i.s an inferior rido-e of ob lito and sandy limo 

 6* 



