114 FROM JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION 



The same experience inspired the popular saying prevalent in the 

 Lowlands of Scotland. Donaldson, in his Husbandry Anatomised 

 (1697) says that, when a tenant improves his land, " the Land- 

 lord obligeth him either to augment his Rent, or remove, insomuch 

 that it's become a Proverb (and I think none more true), Bouch 

 and Sit, Improve and Flit." 



In treating of drainage, Blith deals not only with surface water 

 but the constant action of springs and stagnant bottom water. He 

 urges that no man should attempt to lay out his drains by the eye 

 alone, but by the aid of " a true exact Water Levell," an instrument 

 which he carefully describes and depicts. No drain, he said, could 

 touch the " cold spewing moyst water that feeds the flagg and 

 rush," unless it was " a yard or four feet deep," provided with 

 proper outfalls. The drains were to be filled with elder boughs or 

 with stones, and turfed over. He insists that they should be cut 

 straight, not, as open-field farmers were compelled to cut them 

 for want of space or from the opposition of their neighbours with 

 turns and angles. His views are sound and advanced on general 

 schemes of drainage, which, for " the commonwealth's advantage " 

 should, he suggests, be enforced by compulsory powers upon land- 

 owners. 



When Blith wrote, the condition of the fens had become a matter 

 of national importance. It was now that the great work of draining 

 and reclaiming the drowned district had been for the first time 

 seriously undertaken on a scale commensurate with the magnitude 

 of the task. It is singular that foreigners should have taught the 

 English how to deal, not only with land, but with water. As 

 farmers, the Low Countries were far in advance of England, and 

 from them came the most valuable improvements in agricultural 

 methods, as well as the most useful additions to agricultural 

 resources. Dutchmen drained our fens ; irrigation, warping, canals 

 were all foreign importations. The irrigation of meadows, which 

 M. de Girardin described as a sound insurance against drought, is 

 said to have been first practised in England in modern times by the 

 notorious " Horatio Pallavazene," of Babraham ..." who robbed 

 the Pope to lend the Queen." Warping was brought from Italy 

 to the Isle of Axholme in the eighteenth century, and by its means 

 the deposits at the estuary of the Humber were converted into 

 " polders." The Dutch and Flemings had mastered the secret of 

 locks and canals long before any attempt was made to render 



