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digging the drains deep, filling part of them with clean picked 

 stones, and covering with earth to the depth of six or eight inches. 

 Where stones are scarce, shoulder trenching is practised, but these 

 are liable to be filled up with the workings of the mole, unless 

 water constantly runs in them *. 



All tenants are restricted in their leases from paring and burning, 

 and the practice is scarcely known. 



This division does not abound with oak, but elm grows in the 

 hedges, and if their heads are not unfairly lopt, get to a size suffi- 

 ciently large for the keels of ships of war. For the most part they 

 grow from the inchors or suckers of the neighbouring trees ; pro- 

 bably some from seed. Few are planted from nurseries, nor is 

 there often any occasion for it, elm being the spontaneous produc- 

 tion of the country. 



Their heads or side branches are seldom mutilated, it being un- 

 derftood that the stem swells, in proportion to the sap that is drawn 

 from the root to the head. 



PROVISIONS. 



The price of provisions is comparatively moderate. In Taunton 

 the best beef, mutton, veal, and lamb, may be had by agreement 

 with the butchers, at four-pence per pound the winter, and three- 

 pence halfpenny the summer half year; turkey, three shillings and 

 six-pence; goose, three shillings; ducks, two shillings and sixpence 

 a couple, and fowls, two shillings ; fish, at certain times, very 

 cheap. 



* The great skill of draining land consists in cutting off the water at its source. 

 One deep drain judiciously placed, will frequently preclude the necessity of any 

 other; in most instances such a drain should be near that part of the declivity 

 from which the springs issue. This depends on the position of the clayey sub- 

 stratum, and on the height of the reservoir from whence the springs are fed. A 

 judicious survey of the adjacent land, and a liberal use of the borer are necessary ; 

 preliminaries to a cheap and effectual remedy for wet land, and there are few men 

 in the kingdom possessed of equal skill in this department of agriculture with Mr. 

 Elkington of Warwickshire, whose fame is not confined to the county in which he 

 lives, but is known and acknowledged in many parts of the kingdom. 



Y LEASES, 



