AND PROTECTION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND. 53 



exception of two portions, almost the whole of the land reclaimed 

 by the company's works remains open out-marsh, and is covered 

 at high tides." 



"Sir Thomas Hesketh purchased the reclaimed land in Hesketh 

 on the south side of the river, and has excluded the tide from 

 about 700 acres by- a sea embankment. Half of this land was 

 the new reclaimed land, and the other half was out-marsh in 

 1838, when the Navigation Company got their Bill." 



"On the land embanked in at Hesketh there have been immense 

 crops of a]l kinds of farm produce, and the land has let at a high 

 rent. There was a heavy crop of wheat the first year after the 

 exclusion of the tide." 



" The frontagers in Freckleton and Newton, on the north side of 

 the river, did not claim the right of pre-emption, and the reclaimed 

 land became vested in the Eibble Company, who seven years 

 ago embanked 550 acres of this new land ; and the tide has been 

 excluded from it ever since." 



" The land of the company in Freckleton and Newton was, as 

 soon as embanked, let on a lease for twenty-one years in one 

 farm at a yearly rental of L.3 per statute acre, the tenant paying 

 rates and taxes, and doing all other work, the company main- 

 taining the embankment. In the spring of the year, after the 

 tide had been excluded from the land, it was ploughed and 

 cropped with oats, potatoes, carrots, and turnips, and all were 

 good crops. In the second year wheat was an excellent crop, 

 and all sold for seed, turnips and carrots were extra good crops, 

 oats and barley, ryegrass and clover very full, asparagus plentiful 

 and rich beans sufficient in straw, but yielded nothing, being 

 the only exception to the productiveness of the land. This 



