302 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



from my mill to the uppermost part of my grounds, being in length a meas- 

 ured mile. There laye of meadow land thirty acres overworn with age. and 

 heavily laden with moss, cowslips and much other imperfect grass, betwixt 

 my mill stream and the mane river, which (with two shillings cost) my 

 grandfather and his grandsire, with the rest, might have drowned at their 

 pleasure ; but from the beginning never anything was done, that either tra- 

 dition or record could witness, or any other testimonie. 



" Having viewed the convenientest place, which the uppermost part of 

 my ground would afford for placing a commanding weare or sluce, I espied 

 divers water falls on my neighbours' grounds, higher than mine by seven or 

 eight foote : which gave me great advantage of drowning more ground, 

 than I was of mine own power able to do. 



" I acquainted them with my purpose ; the one being a gentleman of 

 worth and good nature, gave me leave to plant the one end of my weare on 

 his side the river : the other, my tenant, being very aged and simple, by no 

 perswasion I could use, would yield his consent, alledging it would marre 

 his grounds, yea, sometimes his apple trees ; and men told him water would 

 raise the rush, and kill his cowslips, which was the chiefest flower his 

 daughters had to tricke the May-pole withal. 



" After I had wrought thus far, I caused my servant, a joiner, to make a 

 levell to discover what quantity of ground I might obtaine from the entry 

 of the water ; allowing his doubling course, compassing hills to carry it 

 plym or even, which fell out to be some three hundred acres. 



"After I had plymned it upon a true levell, I betooke myself to the favour 

 of my tenants, friends and neighbours, in running my maine trench, which I 

 call my trench-royal. I call it so, because I have within the contents of my 

 worke, counter-trenches, defending-trenches, topping-trenches, winter and 

 summer-trenches, double and treble-trenches, a traversing-trench with a 

 point, and an everlasting-trench, with other troublesome trenches, which in 

 a map I will more lively expresse. When the inhabitants of the country 

 wherein I inhabit (namely the Golden Valley) saw 1 had begun some part 

 of my worke, they summoned a consultation against me and my man John, 

 the leveller, saying our wits were in our hands, not in our heads ; so we 

 both, for three or four years lay levell to the whole country's censure for 

 such engineers as their forefathers heard not of, nor they well able to en- 

 dure without merryments. 



" In the running and casting of my trench-royal, though it was levelled 



