

London to John O 1 Groat's. 193 



of green and gold were planted by man's hands. Such 

 a landscape would convince them that the prairies of 

 Illinois and Iowa may be recovered from their almost 

 depressing monotony by the same means. The soil of 

 this district is apparently the same as that around 

 Chicago black and deep, on a layer of clay. It pul- 

 verises as easily in dry weather, and makes the same 

 inky and sticky composition in wet. To give it more 

 body, or to cross it with a necessary and supplementary 

 element, a whole field is often trenched by the spade as 

 clean as one could be furrowed by the plough. By 

 this process the substratum of clay is thrown up, to a 

 considerable thickness, upon the light, black, almost 

 volatile soil, and mixed with it when dry ; thus giving 

 it a new character and capacity of production. 



Everything seems to grow on a Californian scale in 

 this fen district. Although the soil thus rescued from 

 the waters that had flooded and half dissolved it, was 

 at first as deep, black, and naturally fertile as that of 

 our prairies, those who commenced its cultivation did 

 not make the same mistake as did our Western farmers. 

 They did not throw their manure into the broad drain- 

 ing canals to get rid of it, trusting to the inexhaustible 

 fertility of the alluvial earth, as did the wheat growers 

 of Indiana and Illinois to their cost ; but they hus- 

 banded and well applied all the resources of their barn- 



