Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



] 1 35 



these fern (a space of upwards of 2S0.000 acres) were once " of 

 the nature of land-meadows, fruitful, healthy, and very g dn- 

 ful to the inhabitants, and Yielded much re'lief to the high- 

 land counties in time of great droughts.'' Sir W. Du 'dale 

 (who was horn 160->, and died 16.SG.I was of the same opinion, 

 adding as a proof, " that great numbers of timber trees (oaks, 

 firs, Sec.) formerly grew there, as is plain from manv being 

 Sound in digging canals and drains, some of them severed fioin 

 their roots, the roots standing as thej grew, in firm earth, below 

 ttie moor. 



On deepening the channel of Wisbeach river, in 1635, the 

 workmen, at eight feet below the then bottom, discovered a 

 second bottom, which was s'.onv, with seven boats lying in it 

 covered with silt. And at Wln't.lesea, on digging through the 

 moor at eight teet deep, a perfect soil was found with swards 

 of grass King on it, as they were at lirst mown. Henrv of 

 Huntingdon (who lived in the reign of .Stephen, 1 135,1 'de. 

 scribed this f nny country "as pleasant and agreeable to the 

 eye; watered by many rivers which run through it, diversified 

 by many large and small lakes, and adorned by many woods 

 and islands." And William of Malmsbury (who lived in the 

 first year of Henry II., 1154) has painud the state of the 

 land round f homey in the most glowing colours : he says "it 

 is a very paradise, in pleasure and delight it resembles heaven 

 itselt; the very marshes abounding in trees, whose lengih 

 without knots do emulate the stars." " The plain there iVas 

 level as the sea, which, wiih the flourishing of the grass 

 allureth the eye ; in some parts there are apple-trees, in others 

 Tines.' It appears then, on the authority or the authors 

 quoted, that the fens were formerly wood arid pasture. The 

 engineers were of opinion that the country in question, for- 

 merly meadow and wood, now fen, became so from partial 

 embankments preventing the waters from the upland-, going 

 to the sea by their natural outfalls; want of proper and suffi- 

 cient drains to convey those wateis into the Ouse; negleet of 

 such drains as were made for that purpose ; and that these 

 evils increased from the not embanking the river Ouse, and the 

 erection of sluices across it preventing the flux and reflux of 

 the sea ; the not widening and deepening, where wanted, 

 the river Ouse ; and from not removing the gravels, weeds, eke. 

 which have from time to time accumulated in it 



h 

 other: 



The .first attempt at draining any part of the feat appears to 

 ive been made in the time ot Edward I. (1272, 5x7); manv 

 hers with various success followed. The famous John of 

 (jaunt (or Ghent, who died in 1393), and .Margaret, Countess 

 of Richmond, were amongst the draining adventurers; but 

 Gough, in his addition to Camden, says " the reign of Eliza- 

 beth may lie properly fixed on as the period when the level 

 began to become immedia elvapubliccase. Mam plans were 

 proposed and abandoned between that time and 1634, when 

 King Charles I. granted a charter of incorporation to Francis 

 Ear! of Bedford, and thirteen gentlemen adventurers with 

 him, who jointly undertook to drain the level, on condition 

 H"'™* s h°vdd have granted to them, as a recompense, 

 y5,000 acres (about one third of the level). In lMy, this 

 charter was confirmed to William Earl of Bedford, and his 

 associates, by the Convention Parliament; and in 1653, the 

 level being declared completely drained, the 95,000 acres were 

 conveyed to the adventurers, who had expended 400,0(111/. 

 which is almost 4/. 4s. per aire on the 95,000 acres, and about 

 If. Ss. on the whole breadth, if the whole level contain 285,000 

 acres, and it is generally supposed to contain 300,000 acres. 

 In ICG 1, the corporation called " Conservators of the great 

 level of the fens" was established. This body was empowered 

 to levy taxes on the 95,00" acres, to defray whatever expenses 

 might arise in their preservation ; but onlv 83,000 acres were 

 Tested in the corporation, in trust for the Earl of Bedford and 

 his associates ; the remaining 12,000 were allotted, 10,000 to 

 the King, and 2000 to the Earl of l'ortland. At first the levy 

 was an equal acre tax ; hut upon its being deemed unjust, a 

 gradual one was adopted, which is now acted upon. In the 

 year 1G97, the Bedford level was divided into three districts, 

 north, middle, and south ; having one surveyor for each of the 

 former, and two for ihe latter. Jn 1753, the north level was 

 separated by act of parliament from the rest. In addition to 

 the public acts obtained for draining the tens, several private 

 ones have been granted, for draining separate districts with 

 their hunts, notwithstanding which, and the vast sums ex- 

 pen , rl: n much r en,ai "> <° b " done ; a great part of the fens is 

 now ( l!>0b| in danger of inundation : this calamity has visited 

 them many times, producing effects distressing and extensive 

 beyond conception, indeed many hundred acres of valuable 

 land now drowned, the misfortune aggravated by the proprie- 

 tors being obliged to continue to pay a heavy tax, notwith- 

 standing the loss of their land." 



The interior drainage of the fens is performed in most places 

 by windmills, which are very uncertain in their effects. Steam 

 has been tried, and there can be no doubt would be incompa- 

 rably preferable, as working in all weathers. 



Embanking may he considered a necessary accompaniment 

 of draining on the fen-lands. The fens are divided into three 

 large levels, and each of these levels are subdivided into nu. 

 merous districts by banks; but as these banks are made of 

 ten-moor, and other light materials, whenever the rivers are 

 swelled with waters, or any one district is deluged, either bv 

 rain, a breach of banks, or any other cause, the waters speedily 

 pass through these bright, moorv, porous banks, and drown ail 

 the circumjacent districts. The fens have sometimes sus- 

 tained 20,000/. or 30,000/. damage bv a breach of banks ; but 

 these accidents seldom happen in the same district twice in 

 twenty years ; the water, however, soaks through all fen hanks 

 every year in every district ; and when the water mills have 

 lilted the waters up out of the fens into the rivers in a windv 

 day, a great part of the water soaks back through the porous 

 banks in the night upon the same land again. This water that 

 soaks through the bank, drowns the wheat in the winter, washes 

 the manure into the dykes, destroys the best natural and arti- 

 ficial grasses, and prevents the fens from being sown till too 

 late m the season. This stagnant water, lying on the surface, 

 causes also fen agues, &c. ; thus the waters that have soaked 

 through the porous fen banks have done the fertile fens more 

 real injury, than all the other Hoods that have ever come upon 

 them. Ihe remedy for the soaking through of the water is 

 obviously that of forming a puddle wall in the middle, which 

 appears to have been first thought of among the fen bank- 

 makers by Smith of Chatteris, a prof.ssed embanker, who Uius 

 describes his mode of putting a vertical stratum of putld'e in 



nr ■„",?, ?i! , i f, ? t , c " t a Super, eighteen Inches wide, 

 through the old bank cl ,w„ to the day cthe fen substratum 

 5l«g/SfjS. ,- V) : , ,he ,K l ' t, « ^ made near the centre, bu" 

 a little on the land side of the centre of the old bank. The 

 gutter is afterwards Idled up in a very solid manner will, tem- 

 pered clay ; and to make the clay resist the water, a man in 

 boots always treads the clay as the gutter is filled up. Tliis 

 plan was tried last .summer (1704), on a convenient firm, and 

 a hundred acres of wheal were sown on the land. The wheat 

 and grass lands on this farm are now all drv, whilst the fens 

 around are covered with water. This practice answers so well 

 on this farm, that all the farmers in the parish are improving 

 their banks in the same manner, and some have begun in ad- 

 jacent parishes." h 



With respect to embanking from the sea, Vancouver is of 

 opinion, that the ground ought to be covered by nature with 

 samphire or oiher plants, or with grass, before an attempt is 

 made to embank it ; there is particular danger in being too 

 greedy. " It the sea has not raised the salt marsh to its irtiit- 

 tul level, all expectation of benefit is vain, the soil being im- 

 mature, and not ripened for enclosure ; and if, again with a 

 view of grasping a great extent of salt marsh, the banks or sea 

 wall be pushed furiher outwards than where there is a firm 

 and secure foundation tor it to stand upon, the bank will blow 

 up, and in both casts great losses and disappointment will 

 ensue. 



Paring and burning is every where approved of, and consi- 

 tiered the oi,ie qua turn of the ten disliict, m breaking up turf 

 Vi ithout it corn crops are destroyed by the grub and wire- 

 worm. 



Irrigation Col.Adeane, of Barbraham, has 300 acres of 

 meadows which have been irrigated from the time of Oueen 

 Elizabeth. Pallavicino, who was collector of Peter's pence 

 1". 7r, ng !' l " d '. at ,he death of Q u,t ' n A,ar :<> having 30,000/. or 

 40,000/. in his hands, had the art to turn l'rotestant on tl e 

 accession of (,)ueen Elizabeth, and appropriated the money to 

 his own use; he bought with it an estate at Barbraham, and 

 other lands near Bournbridge ; and procuring a grant from the 

 crown of the river which passes through them, was enabled 

 legally to bund a sluice across it, ai d throw as much of the 

 water as was necessary into a new cai al of irrigation, ye hich he 

 dug to receive it in the method so well knoun, and commonly 

 practised in Italy long before that period. 1 he canals and 

 the s.uices are all well designed, anil are the work of a man 

 evidently well acquainted with the practice; but in taking the 

 waters from them, tor spreading it by small channels over the 

 meadows, there does not seem to be the least intelligence, or 

 knowledge ot the husbandry of watering. No other art is 

 exerted but that merely of opening in the lank of the river 

 small cuts tor letting the » ater flow on to the meadows always 

 laterally, and never longitudinally, so necessary in works of this 

 kind. 'Ihewater thin finds its own distribution, and so irre- 

 gularly, that many paits ret eive too much, and others none at 

 all. rrom the traces left of small el annels in different pans 

 of the meadows, it would appear that the ancient distribution 

 formed under l'allavicino is lost, and that we see nothing at 

 present but the miserable patch-work of workmen ignorant of 

 the business. Irrigation has not spread from this example 

 but might be extensively practised on the banks of all the 

 rivers." 



12. Live Stock. 



Cattle a breed peculiar to the county- ; but some of all sorts 

 Butcl ers give more for a Cambridge calf than a Suffolk one, 

 fancying the former whiter veal. The Cottenhain cheese 

 ascribed to the excellence of the grass, in great part i'oa 

 aqu.itica. 



The com system consists chiefly in suckling of calves and 

 making ot butter ; there is not much cheese made, except the 

 noted ones ot Suham and Cottenhain. The suckling season is 

 from Michaelmas to Lady-day. It requires, on an average, 

 two cows to fatten a calf. The cows, when at a distance from 

 home, are milked in the pasture, and the milk brought home 

 by a horse or ass, in tubs, slung across : women could not do 

 this work, the travelling being, after the least rain, very bad- 

 even when there is no water to go through. The butter is sold 

 rolled up in pieces of a yard long, and about two inches in 

 circumference ; this is done for the conveniency of colleges, 

 where it is cut into pieces, called " parts," and so sent to 

 table; its quality is nowhere excelled. 



Bullocks of various kinds fattened on grass, and when not 

 ready in autumn, put up and finished on corn or oil-cake. 

 Col. Adeane buys in London at a falling market, and keeps till 

 a rising one before he st lis. 



Shicji chiefly as in Huntingdonshire; some Is'orfolks and 

 South Downs ; folding on the uplands. 



Horses of the cart kind much bred, and considered an article 

 in which the county excels; they are -very large and bonv ; 

 black ; with long hair from the knee to the fetlock trailing on 

 the ground. A cart stallion has cost 255 guineas, and his colts 

 have sold for sixty guineas. Horses kipt in the stable through- 

 out the year, at a great expense, because on drv food ; herbage 

 plants, artificial grasses, and roots being neglected, and no soil- 

 ing practised. 



The deer in Wimpole Tark attacked bv a singular disease, a 

 sort of madness; the diseased animal begins by pursuing the 

 herd, then sequesters himself, breaks his antlers against the 

 trees, and gnaws large pieces of flesh from his sides, &c. be- 

 comes convulsed, and soon expires. 



Pigeon-lwusts on almost every farm ; kept in a great measure 

 because if any one were to give them up, he would be obliged 

 to keep the pigeons of others ; destroy thatched roofs, and oblige 

 every farmer to soiv more seed than he otherwise would ; pro- 

 duce sent to London and other parts ; often 100 dozen pet 

 annum from one pigeonry ; dung highly prized. 



13. Rural Economy. 



Peat, sedge, or thin tuif, and dried cow-dung used as fuel. 

 The cow-dung is spread on grass, about an inch and a half 

 thick, and cut into pieces, tight or twelve inches square ; there 

 it lies till dry. 



H. Political Economy. 



Roads mherably had ; canals or navigable cuts in the fen* in 

 all directions; a few fairs ; a pottery at Elv for coarse wart-; 

 excellent white bricks made there, and at Chatteris and Cam- 

 bridge; lime burned at various places. 



