f ART IV. 



AGRICULTURE. 



203 



and lakes, which commonly turn out the most productive of 

 all soils. Morasses and peat 1 bogs are of a different nature; 

 they may commonly be drained at little expence ; and the 

 moment the operation is completed they begin to improve; the 

 growth of the sphagnum is checked; decay ensues; and, suppos- 

 ing nothing else to be done, in a few years grasses and other 

 vegetables appear upon the surface, which will in course of 

 time become clothed with tolerably good pasture. 



Surface draining is the most simple of any ; being little more 

 than mechanical labour. It is known to every agriculturist, 

 and is performed with excellent effect in Essex and Peebles- 

 shire. In this last county it has been of immense service. — See 

 an excellent Survey of the Agriculture of Peeblesshire, by the 

 Rev. Charles Findlater. 



Embanking. — As this subject, so far as I know, has not been 

 treated by any author (for Dugd ale's history of it contains no- 

 thing of the practice), and as I have had considerable practice 

 in designing embankments either for preserving or gaining land 

 from rivers or the sea, or for guarding the banks of rivers, I 

 shall extend these hints to a length that had been otherwise 

 unnecessary in a work like the present. I shall, therefore, 

 make some remarks under the following heads : 



