92 THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL [CH. 



long, however, as wheat remained high in price 

 occasional losses of this kind were not serious to the 

 farmer. But the labourer suffered, for he found him- 

 self practically out of work all the winter, excepting 

 when the ground happened to be frozen sufficiently 

 hard to enable the dung carts to travel, or when 

 hedging and ditching had to be done. 



Next came a period of depression from 1813 to 

 1836 when much of the clay land became derelict. 



A new era of prosperity opened with the reign of 

 Queen Victoria and gradually the land was taken 

 into cultivation. A delightful account has been pre- 

 served^ of the reclamation during this period of a 

 cold, wet, clay farm. " Every incoming tenant took it 

 at about half the previous rent ; dabbled about for 

 a year or two like a duck, and retired — *lame.' It 

 was but a simple equation — a very simple one — to 

 say when the rent would come to zero." The water 

 did not drain away, "it would stand, day affcer day, 

 and week after week, and month after month, shining 

 along the serpentine furrows, as if it never, never, 

 never would go again. And the only wonder was 

 when or how, or by what bold amphibious being the 

 ridges had ever been raised, which it intersected, 

 like a sample series of Dutch canals and embank- 

 ments." 



1 Talpa^ or The Chronicles of a Clay Farm, by C. Wren Hoskyns, 

 1852. 



