36 LAND WON FROM THE SEA 



neither is its quality so inferior as Sir Hugh Myddel- 

 ton judged. Possibly the improvement in the seven- 

 teen years during which the old sea-bottom has been 

 exposed to sun and rain, has been proportionately more 

 rapid than in the ten in which it was exposed to the 

 air after 1620. Then half the area was described as 

 consisting of " light, running sand of little worth," 

 though the upper portion promised to become valuable 

 pasture. Those advocates of reclamation of land from 

 the sea, who propose to " leave it to Nature " when 

 the sea has once been barred out, can see at Brading 

 and Bembridge what it is exactly that Nature does, 

 and how far art can help to make old sea-bottom into 

 pasture for cattle, and even into a playground for men 

 and women, in seventeen years. It must be remem- 

 bered that in this case Nature has been hurried, and 

 made to do her work before her time. Left to itself, 

 the harbour would have silted up in the course of 

 centuries, and the pastures would have grown of them- 

 selves, on land already covered with the alluvial mould. 

 As it is, the sea was swept from the land, which had 

 to take its chance as it was, mud, sand, shingle, or 

 cockle-beds, just as they came. There was not even 

 an earthworm on the whole six hundred acres to move 

 the soil and help the rain to wash the salt out of it. 

 The wonder is not that the change has taken place 

 so slowly, but that the change from a soil supporting 

 marine vegetable growth in one set of conditions, to 

 a soil largely covered with grass, clover, and trefoil, 

 has matured so quickly. What was once the head of 



