v] RAISING OF THE FERTILITY LIMIT 71 



immemorial, been solved successfully in various parts 

 of England Much of Romney Marsh in the South of 

 Kent was reclaimed from the sea before or during 

 Roman times, while the adjoining Walland and Denge 

 Marshes were brought in and drained by successive 

 Archbishops of Canterbury beginning about 774. 

 The great monasteries in the Fens had also reclaimed 

 parts of the surrounding land. In 1626 a great 

 scheme was set into operation for draining the Fens 

 and embanking its rivers, the work being executed 

 by a celebrated Dutchman, Cornelius Vermuyden. 

 As this is essentially an engineering problem we 

 cannot go into the details of the methods adopted; 

 nor does space allow any account of the romantic 

 story of the project, its interruption by storm, by the 

 exhaustion of the resources of the Adventurers, by 

 the Civil War, and finally by the fen men themselves, 

 who had no taste for farming and no wish to see 

 wheat and cattle take the place of fish and waterfowl. 



"Behold the great design, which they do now determine, 

 Will make our bodies pine, a prey to crows and vermin ; 

 For they do mean all fens to drain and waters overmaster 

 All will be dry and we must die, 'cause Essex calves want 

 pasture " 



went the old fenman's song. 



The scheme as it works to-day consists of two 

 great parts: (1) the water from the high lands is 

 intercepted and discharged into the river so that it 



